Homesick
by KuroganeNoFeari
Summary: The universe is finally at peace and the paladins are able to come back to Earth. Now that they don't need to form Voltron anymore, the team must part. It should be the best moment of their lives, but the atmosphere is gloomy. As they walk away, each step is harder than the last. Even in his family, Lance feels like he misses home... If only he could know if his friends were fine.
1. As we walk away

**Chapter 1 – As we walk away**

"Do you think they're alright?" Lance said, staring at the empty wide space that spread behind the window of the ship.

Coran glanced at him, quiet.

"I'm sure they are." the ginger haired man responded after a long pause, eyes locked on the blue paladin. He had never seen him being this fragile, nostalgic. Even if they all complained about Lance being so loud every time he spoke, they all loved that side of him, and having him standing this defenceless awoke some paternal feelings in Coran. He sat near the young man without looking at him.

"Tell me what is so amazing about Earth."

Stars lit up in Lance's eyes as he thought about his home planet, about his family. He missed the water, he missed the lakes, the sea, the rain… but above all, he missed the sweet warmth of his mother's arms around him, the sticky hands of his nephew and niece on his skin, and the amused smile of his father whenever he did something wrong. All he could do was hope that they were fine and that they didn't miss him as much as he missed them.

* * *

Lance sighed, the blanket wrapped around him like when he was a child. He looked out of the window and watched the rain as it fell loudly on the glass. A cough tickled his throat and he pulled out an arm, seeking for a glass of water on his bedside table.

It had already been one week since he finally got back home, and a part of him still didn't realise it yet. He had gone through so much in only a few months –or was it years? He couldn't be sure, really.

Only a month ago, the Voltron team had finally defeated Zarkon, liberating the entire universe at the same time. All was well that ended well. Despite everything, Lance felt empty, almost sad. Something wasn't right and he definitely knew what…

* * *

 _"Guys… We did it… We did it…" Keith didn't stop repeating, completely stunned._

 _"We got that, Keith! We were there too!" the blue paladin laughed, a wide grin on his lips and an arm around the other man's shoulders. Once again, Keith was too shocked to even notice it._

 _"I can't believe we did it..." Hunk added in a weak tone. "We saved the whole universe… Everybody's safe, now!"_

 _"Just say that_ Shay _is safe, now." Lance smirked again, finally letting go of Keith to go bother his best friend. His smile hadn't faded since the moment they saw the Galra ship explode and Allura told that them no energy trace remained._

 _The yellow paladin blushed a bit, but he was so happy he didn't even care about appearances. He wanted to shout his joy out loud, and that's exactly what he did. Right in Lance's ears, obviously, just before hugging him so tight Lance could barely breathe. If Zarkon hadn't managed to kill him, Lance was certain Hunk was about to put an end to him here and now if he didn't stop crushing him._

 _In a corner of the room, Pidge was crying in a man's arms. She had finally managed to save her father and her brother and couldn't keep her emotions to herself anymore. A hand on her shoulder, Shiro was talking with them, tears in the corners of his eyes. It had been so long…_

 _Allura was crying too, going from one paladin to another to congratulate them again and again. Coran decided to make a huge feast to celebrate and he went to the kitchen, quickly followed by a worried Hunk – food was sacred, after all!_

 _As Lance straightened himself up, he looked at all his friends around him. They spent so much time together they were all like a family to him – yes, even the annoying one with the mullet. And a new thought suddenly occurred to him, his smile fading away as he realised. Now that the world was finally at peace, the universe wouldn't need Voltron anymore. They wouldn't need to stay together anymore._

 _His eyes lingered on Allura's smiling face bathed with tears. He would miss her so much it was killing him just to think of it. The crush he had on her at first was gone but he was definitely attached to her. The bond every one of them had developed with each other was something he couldn't put into words. The only one he was sure he would see again was Hunk. Or at least he hoped so… Hunk wouldn't do that to him, right? Not him, his best friend? But then, there was Shay, who Lance knew Hunk had fallen in love with._

 _His heart clenched in his chest, and in the middle of these people he knew more than anyone, in the middle of these friends of him, he suddenly felt so alone._

 _A red figure passed him and he watched Keith going to lean against a wall. His gaze was fixed on someone – Shiro – and his eyebrows furrowed as his face slowly seemed to sadden. He met Lance's eyes and they both knew they were thinking about the same thing. They were two faces of the same coin: different, opposed, but made from the same metal._

 _Lance suddenly felt the vital need to offer Keith a place back home with him. The boy was an orphan and he probably didn't have any place left to live. However, Lance didn't move, stuck in deep thoughts and torment._

* * *

 _"Guys, I've come up with an idea…" Pidge said hesitantly while they ate the meal prepared by Hunk and Coran. She spoke without the natural self-assurance she usually had when unveiling her new inventions and it tickled everyone's curiosity. "I thought that, now that we've defeated Emperor Zarkon and the threats on the universe gone, our team will surely split up, and-" she paused to clear her throat and no one dared to look at her face. Suddenly, they all were very busy with the green jelly that moved awkwardly in their plates. "And I thought maybe we could… maybe some of us would like to keep in touch… ?"_

 _Her voice raised a bit at the end of her sentence, marking what sounded like a question._

 _Shiro was the first to talk. "Of course, Pidge. I take it you've figured out a way to allow that?"_

 _She smiled at him, a bit reassured. "Yup. I'll need your phones, I have to upgrade them with a little gadget of mine. Coran helped me to get them to work." she added, and the Altean quickly wiped away a tear that ran down his cheek._

 _"I will miss you so much, guys!" Allura burst into tears, hiding her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking. Shiro immediately stood up from his chair and froze when he saw that everyone was looking at him. Matt's eyes were going from him to Allura and back to him, and a knowing look slowly painted on his face._

 _"I-… I'll stay with you on the ship, if you allow me to." Shiro bravely declared, his voice lower than normal. "I need to grow the bond between my Lion and I, even if there is no other threat... yet."_

 _"Really?" the Princess sobbed with relief, still shaking even if a smile was blooming on her lips._

 _Coran let out a relieved sigh and glanced at the leader of Team Voltron, mouthing a "thank you" that made Shiro's cheeks go an even deeper shade of red._

 _At this moment, Lance let out a scream: "Blue!" and he ran straight to where his Lion was._

 _" I… I hadn't thought about that" Pidge admitted, a concerned look on her face. "What will become of our lions?"_

 _"We will keep them here, safe and ready to go if necessary" Coran assured. "Even if I hope you'll never have to form Voltron again."_

 _"Sure... We all do."_

 _The last voice was Keith's, sounding completely unconvincing. He would never admit it, but he actually felt sad at the prospect of never forming Voltron again. It meant never bonding with the others again, and so never being this close to someone else again. Even if Keith was kind of a lone wolf, he truly cared for those intense moments when all five of them combined their minds and souls to form one entity. He didn't even know what he was going to do. The paladin of the red Lion didn't feel like coming back to Earth. He had no one to wait for him and he had nothing left to do there. Actually, he had nothing left to do anywhere in the universe. He glanced at Pidge who was teasing her brother under the soft look of their father, then he looked at Shiro, who couldn't untie his gaze from Allura who was enthusiastically talking with Coran, already making plans for the future of the legacy of Altea and Voltron. When he turned to give him a look, Keith found that Hunk had disappeared, and he felt the sudden need to go and see his Lion too. He had already thought about taking Red with him to explore new planets while searching for his parents but he wasn't sure about this decision yet._

 _Slowly, the half-Galra walked away from his friends to join his Lion in a quiet, solemn atmosphere. He stood in front of Red for a few minutes, eyes closed as he focused on the connection between the robot-animal and himself. "I promise I will never let you down, Red. I'll come back to you."_

 _He bit his tongue, expecting to hear Lance's mocking voice telling him to stop flirting with his Lion, but nothing came, only silence. He opened his eyes in surprise, one eyebrow raised. He seemed to be alone. Blue was resting near by, with the other Lions, and there was no trace of the two missing paladins._

 _"Don't worry, Blue, you'll see him again. He's just... sad." Hunk's voice said weakly, pain and sadness making his voice vibrate._

 _Hunk was actually sitting on the floor between his Lion's paws. Keith decided to leave him alone. So, Lance wasn't anywhere to be seen. Was he ever even there?_

 _If he wasn't here with his Lion, there were only a few places where the sharpshooter could be, and the red paladin went to check them all. He needed to know that Lance was okay. He had always been the most carefree of the group, always making bad puns and giving Keith a reason to laugh at him. If Lance wasn't fine, then nothing was fine. Even if the latter thought of him as a rival, Lance had always been the one to cool down Keith's impulsive temper. It was so easy for him to bond with people just with a few words, to make them feel at ease -or not at all- and to be the center of attention. For all these reasons, Keith envied him, and that was why he couldn't allow him to be sad. Or at least, not alone. Keith was a lonely kind of person, Lance wasn't, he needed friends to be around him. It made him feel alive, Keith knew that._

 _There were at least three places where he knew he could find Lance: his bedroom, the bridge of the ship or the swimming pool. Knowing him, Keith headed in the direction of the swimming pool first. Lance always seemed to feel better when he had water near him. It had always been his element._

 _When he entered the room, a wave of relief washed over the pale skinned boy as he saw his friend. He was looking up to the swimming pool that floated above his head._

 _"You won't be able to swim there, you know." Keith said in a sarcastic tone. "Just wait until you're home."_

 _Right. Good job, Keith. That's exactly what he needed to hear! How come he was so bad at helping people?!_

 _Lance glared at him, tears in the corners of his eyes. Keith froze, not daring to move. After a while, he finally opened his mouth to speak._

 _"You don't want Pidge to upgrade your phone?" The red paladin eventually asked after clearing his throat twice or thrice._

 _His voice was calm and almost monotone. He knew the vision of Lance crying was going to haunt him for months. That was something he never wanted to see again – and something he knew would happen again really soon._

 _"I guess so…" Lance answered after a silence that seemed to last hours._

 _He took a few minutes to gather his thoughts and wipe the tears off his cheeks. Then, he left the room without a look to Keith who stood still, eyes on him._

 _Sure, Keith, you're not stupid at all. You just made him sad AND angry when he was only sad to start with. Good job, someone should give you a medal!_

* * *

 _"Hey, Pidge! I've heard you needed my phone! Don't hesitate to put the numbers of any cute girls you know too if you want!" Lance declared, grinning._

 _The girl rolled her eyes and took the device. She started to dismantle it and began soldering something on the side. Lance watched her a few seconds before deciding to take a chair to rest. He put his feet on the table near her and gazed at the ceiling._

 _It was way too quiet for Lance and Pidge stopped her tinkering to give him a look but he didn't even remark. She got back to the phone improvement and spoke in a nonchalant tone_

 _"Aren't you happy to see your family soon?"_

 _The boy blinked a few times unhearing, before turning his gaze to the green paladin._

 _"Sorry, you said something?"_

 _"I was saying you must be happy to see your family soon." Pidge repeated, eyes resolutely focused on her task._

 _"Hmhm, sure, I am."_

 _Again, Pidge stopped what she was doing to observe him. "It's not like you to be so quiet, Lance" she pointed out. "Are you sure you're okay?"_

 _He let out a sigh and his blue eyes met her hazel gaze. "Okay, right, you got me, there. I may not be so fine!" he admitted, throwing his arms up in the air and almost falling from the chair._

 _"Oh, I would never have guessed!" Pidge mocked. "So, what's the matter?" she asked more kindly, already knowing the answer._

 _"It's hard to explain… I mean, sure, the world is at peace, we're freaking heroes, and that's so cool! And we're eventually going home, on Earth, and I'll see my family, and it's true that I miss them so much, but…"_

 _"But you're afraid to lose this." She affirmed, gesturing to the space around her to represent the castle, Voltron, their adventure. "I think I know that feeling. I'm glad to have found Matt and Dad, don't get me wrong, but at the same time… I'll miss you, guys…"_

 _She put her screwdriver on the table to wipe away tears._

 _"It was really a great adventure." She concluded, the reflection of her glasses hiding her eyes._

 _She felt a hand on her shoulder and raised her head._

 _"We'll meet again, I'm sure." Lance assured, struggling against the strong need to hug her so he wouldn't break the phone. "And it'll be thanks to you, Pidge."_

 _"Don't forget Coran" she replied, a smile in her voice._

 _"Okay, right. Thanks to you and Coran, but not thanks to his food!"_

 _They both started to laugh, letting go of the pain and stress in a much needed joyful moment. Not far from where they were, in the corridor, Coran was smiling too. The paladins were all like a family to him and it was painful to think these were the last moments they would spend together, but he had the feeling they would see each other again. All he could hope was that it would be to celebrate something and not because of some new enemies threatening the peace in the universe._

* * *

 _Several hours passed, then days, and the paladins could feel the incoming proximity of their home planet. They tried to act like they used to, they laughed, they fought, but their hearts weren't in it. Every gaze they shares was tinted with sadness._

 _They were all playing a card game –Pidge was winning, even if they all suspected she was cheating, when Allura called them to come to the bridge. When they arrived, they stopped abruptly eyes on the blue sphere floating behind the glass._

 _This was the very first time the crew saw Earth from space. The view was stunningly beautiful and shocking at the same time. That was the exact moment when the reality of this whole adventure hit them. They never realised how far from their birth planet they had been, or how long their trip had lasted. What did their families think? Did they think they were dead? What did the Garrison tell them?_

 _Lance silently approached the window and pressed his hand flat on the glass. He felt so weak he needed to let his forehead rest against the glass, and the void seemed to suck him in._

 _"We… we're coming home…" Lance murmured. He shed a tear, struggling against the gross sobs that threatened to overcome him. When he finally dared to look at the others, they were all sitting in front of the window, quiet. Samuel Holt was hugging both his children, focused on Earth, he imagined being where his wife was. Pidge and Matt were holding hands and it looked like they had stopped breathing._

 _Shiro was lost deep in thoughts. Near him, Hunk was sporting a brilliant smile. He was looking as if he was gonna explode, and he didn't know himself if he was going to laugh or cry. Probably both. He turned to Lance and met his confused gaze, Hunk's smile changed into an interrogative grimace._

 _The blue paladin looked at the two Alteans that were remaining on the sidelines. Allura felt so relieved for her friends and Coran was looking at them tenderly._

 _From where he stood, Lance was feeling like a stranger to the scene. He took notice of the fact that not all of them were coming home. Only three of the paladins were. Four if he counted Shiro, but as he had planned to stay on the ship…_

 _Hunk and Lance had their family on Earth and the Holts had their mom and wife. Shiro and Keith, as for them, weren't going anywhere._

 _Keith… Where was he again?_

 _"Hey, does anyone know where Keith is?" the sharpshooter asked around._

 _The question brought life to the crew and several of them blinked a few times before understanding Lance's calling._

 _"He was just behind me a few_ doboshes _ago" Shiro declared, confused._

 _"I'll go and find him." The blue paladin declared while rising from the floor._

 _When he left the room, the others looked at each other. Hunk was the one to say out loud what they were all thinking._

 _"Do you guys think they're okay?..."_

* * *

 _"I knew I would find you here."_

 _Keith started and gave a quick look to the doorway where Lance was standing. He turned back to his fight, but the few_ ticks _that the Cuban distracted for him were enough for the robot to kick the red paladin's sword away._

 _"End training sequence!" Keith shouted in anger. "Fuck, Lance! That's your fault!"_

 _"It's nice to see you too, Keith." The other responded, bitter._

 _"Can't you just leave me alone for once?!" Mullet boy screamed again, coming closer to his teammate with a dangerous light dancing in his eyes._

 _"Don't worry, you'll have plenty of time to be alone in a few hours" Lance slowly told without wavering. He took his time to sit on the floor, not impressed in the least._

 _All of Keith's being wanted to punch Lance's obnoxious face but he miraculously managed to restrain himself. He took several deep breaths before glancing at the other again._

 _"What do you want, Lance?"_

 _The only answer he got was silence, and an ocean blue gaze stuck in his own._

 _"What are you going to do?" the tanned skinned man finally spoke up, so serious it made Keith frown._

 _He hesitated, not sure what to answer. He would have enjoyed staying in the castle but he knew he would feel like he was playing gooseberry with Shiro and Allura. He would never admit it but seeing Shiro giving this much attention to Allura did hurt him. Maybe he was jealous, and that only thought made him even more furious at himself. He clenched his fists until his knuckles were white._

 _"You're not coming back on Earth, are you?" Lance continued when he understood Keith wasn't going to speak._

 _"What would I do there?" the red paladin finally uttered. "I'd better look for my family."_

 _"Keith," his friend started._

 _Lance stopped. He couldn't argue. He knew the feeling of missing his family, and even if Keith had almost no memories of his, he guessed the red paladin wanted to know who they were and what became of them._

 _Nevertheless, he wanted to help him, and letting him stay alone in space wouldn't be a good way to do it._

 _"Keith, listen. Come with me on Earth! We'll welcome you as a family member, I promise. I know it's not the same and you prefer being on your own but I don't want you to wander off alone in space and, quiznack, Keith, I don't want—" Lance declared hurriedly as he grasped Keith's arm._

 _He could have continued like that for a while without even breathing but a violent tremor interrupted him and both of them fell on the floor when the castle braked to land. They slipped to the other side of the room and hit the wall hard with a muffled sound._

 _"You okay?" Keith grumbled when he managed to get up._

 _"I think my nose's broken and I'm blind but yeah. You?" the other stated as he tried to lean against the wall._

 _The red paladin quickly gave him a look. He rolled his eyes when he saw the hoodie that was blindfolding Lance and a discreet smile of relief bloomed on his lips._

 _"I'm fine, and I think you're home, Lance."_

 _The blue eyed man let out a melancholic sigh and they both moved to join the others in the cockpit, walking in a gloomy silence._

* * *

 _They walked out of the ship all together and the grass and the sky reminded Coran and Allura of Altea. The princess kneeled in the middle of the field before them to pick a flower that looked like her mom's favourite._

 _"Coran! Look! It looks exactly like the species we have on Altea!" she called enthusiastically._

 _He took the little flower with slight caution, but his eyes were shining. He brought it closer to his face. It was bright pink and so light the wind threatened to take it away with each blow. The smell was sweet and brought the Alteans a flow of old memories._

 _"It even has the same perfume than ours," he agreed with nostalgia._

 _He briefly held the plant against his heart before giving it back to Allura._

 _Behind them, the paladins were walking gingerly, dazzled by the sunlight. The Holt family was smiling happily._

 _"I had forgotten what the sky looked like down here," Shiro said in a weak tone, his gaze focused on the fluffy clouds that were slowly passing by._

 _"Feel free to stay here if you change your mind." the Altean princess instantly offered him. "I won't blame you if you do."_

 _"Why don't_ you two _stay here?" Hunk genuinely suggested to both Coran and Allura. "If this place is so much like your home planet, you're most likely going to love living here. And I think our food is better, too."_

 _"We can't, we still have so much to do. The war might be over, but we still have a lot of work to keep the universe in a better place. We need not to repeat our past mistakes." The Altean woman explained with a concerned look. "I'm sorry, paladins."_

 _"So, it's over, now?" Lance finally spoke up, avoiding everyone's gaze._

 _The way he said it sounded like a breakup, and it could have been funny if the team wasn't feeling exactly the same way._

 _"It was nice having you all by my side" he added in a blow._

 _His gaze drifted to the castle where he knew his Lion was and he swallowed with difficulty._

 _"Guys, I've an idea!" Pidge exclaimed in an attempt to lighten up the atmosphere._

 _Her brother looked like he was going to make a sarcastic comment but she hushed him._

 _"Let's take photos together! I'll send them to you all when I'm home!"_

 _"That's actually a pretty good idea," Keith granted._

 _"Because you doubted it would be?" Pidge dared him._

 _"We'll keep them on board," Allura cheered to avoid them fighting. "And we'll prepare a room with all our memories of these moments!"_

 _The idea seemed to delight the crew and they immediately started taking pictures. Lance was particularly dedicated to making derp faces and to photobomb the others' photos, and they were all glad to see him being himself again. The photoshoot ended when a fight over who was the most photogenic broke out, Lance and Matt both arguing they obviously were._

 _"Stop it, now! It's too childlish for the people who saved the universe to fight over something like this!" Shiro declared in his dad voice. "And we all know the most photogenic guy out of all of us is me."_

 _"Whaaaat?!" Matt and Lance yelled in unison._

 _They spent the whole day like this, taking photos, selfies and pictures that were supposed to never leave their friend circle – and they all knew the green paladin would put them online as soon as possible._

 _The clouds were red when they stopped and for a few minutes they looked at each other with bliss. The silence came, heavy, and Hunk was the first to burst into tears. He sobbed loudly and hugged every one of them, including Pidge's dad who didn't know how to react._

 _"Hey, Shiro. You better send us messages," Matt ordered the black paladin, a slight smile on his face._

 _"Don't worry, I won't forget you now that you're back and safe."_

 _Behind him, Keith was looking away, already wanting to go back to his Lion. That was the only place he felt secure, and he knew he could rely on Red to never let him fall._

 _"Keith, what have you got planned?"_

 _The teenager raised his head to look at his team leader, surprised._

 _"I don't really know, I think I'll just go and look for my family."_

 _Shiro frowned and granted him a concerned look before relaxing._

 _"Stay with us for a while, we'll do our best to help" the older man smiled._

 _It wasn't even a suggestion, it was already a fact. The red paladin seemed to unwind a bit and he was considering spending more time with them than previously scheduled. He met Lance's gaze but the latter quickly looked away. With a sigh, Keith approached him and sat beside him. Maybe this time he would succeed in helping him._

 _"What's wrong?" he asked, as softly as possible._

 _He rapidly looked for Hunk's position in the likely case he would worsen the situation. The big man was now crying in Coran's arms and Allura was busy comforting him._

 _"I think I'll miss our moments. And Voltron. And everybody. I will probably end up missing you too, actually," Lance let out with a weak smile._

 _"Wow, me too, you sure?" Keith laughed slightly. "It's such an honour!... Hey, lighten up, Lance, it's not like you to be so down. In a few hours you'll see your family again!"_

 _"If I survive tomorrow, I'll check if Pidge's phone improvement works."_

 _"If you survive tomorrow?" the half-Galra questioned._

 _"You don't know my mom," Lance laughed sincerely, and the sound was music to Keith's ears. "I don't know how much time we've spent up there but she'll yell at me and she'll probably break my bones hugging me at the same time!"_

 _He gave a peaceful glimpse to the swordfighter before he spoke again: "You really don't want to come with me?"_

 _"Thanks but I'll pass," Keith refused with a mirthless smile. "I'm not the best at bonding with people, I'd bother you."_

 _"Yet I thought you were doing quite a good job with us..."_

 _The voice wasn't higher than a whisper and Keith never knew if he had imagined it or if Lance had actually spoken. They stayed like that for some more time before Lance stood up to stretch._

 _The ship had landed in a desert landscape in Cuba, making it easier for him to go home. They had decided to do it this way so that Lance could get home easily and Hunk and the Holts could go to the airport together._

 _The five of them bid farewell to their friends, knots in their stomachs and they started to walk away. Lance had promised himself he wouldn't look back, it would have made it even worse for him. He hugged Hunk briefly, struggling against the tears that threatened to drop. Then he turned to Pidge, who jumped into his arms and almost made him fall. He heard the laughs of Coran, Allura, Shiro and Keith who were still outside, looking at them all. Watching over them all. Once again he was trying to keep himself from crying his eyes out._

 _When they all realised they couldn't put it off any longer,_ _Lance parted from the group as bravely as he could and started to walk away into the night, all alone, aiming for the nearest station. At least he wasn't far from home. He was only a hundred meters further when he heard it._

 _He looked back to the castle that was rumbling. Five bolts flew out and the Lions landed just in front of the ship, sat in a line._

 _Lance focused his gaze on Blue, feeling her attention on him._

 _Tears made their way to the ground. Lance was frozen, unable to move a single finger._

 _The Lions raised their heads in unison and let out a powerful, heartbreaking roar. It was more than what Lance was able to stand. He fled. He ran with all the energy he still had, he ran until Blue couldn't see him anymore, he ran until he was out of breath. When he could finally see the lights of the station in front of him, they were all blurred by the tears overflowing his eyes. The sound of Blue's roar was ingrained in his memory and he doubted he would ever forget it._


	2. No connection

**Chapter 2 – No connection**

Lance's gaze wandered to the photos on the wall. He brushed them with his fingertips, lost in his thoughts. Under his skin were not only pictures of his friends but also the reality of what felt like a dream. A really very painful dream. He had been feeling as if his heart was torn ever since he had left the team, and Blue's roar was still echoing in his mind.

He coughed dryly and looked at the phone lying beside him, the screen dead black. The device had been dead since Lance's first day back home. It had been raining heavily and the sharpshooter had missed it so much he had immediately ran out to enjoy the feeling of the cold water running down his body. His phone had fallen in a puddle when he was dancing under the rain.

From then, his phone was broken. RIP Garry the phone, he will be forever in our hearts. That's also how Lance got sick and was condemned to stay in bed for a whole week. It wasn't a bad thing since he had his family to take care of him –and God, he had missed that so much- but it also meant he was alone with his own thoughts. And the Internet. The internet was a good thing, definitely.

A marvellous invention he was glad to have back, even if he hadn't had the opportunity to use it yet.

"Lance, Lance! Let's watch a movie together! Laaaance!"

The door opened abruptly on a little girl who ran straight onto her uncle's bed. She snuck under the blanket that Lance still had around his shoulders and rested her head against his chest. Her brown hair was covering her face like a silk curtain, hiding the huge smile that spread on her lips.

"Lilí, get out of my room, you'll get sick," Lance slightly admonished her, a smile in his voice.

"But Nathan and I have missed you so much!" Lilí complained, her eyes beginning to water.

The ex-paladin sighed and finally nodded. He couldn't resist her teary eyes and even if he knew she used this argument every time she wanted him to do something, he was weak to it.

Lilí howled in excitement, any evidence of upset completely gone, and jumped out of Lance's lap to announce to her brother that they had won.

"Please, tell me they're not planning to watch Frozen _again_ ," Lance begged to whatever God there could be. Even if he loved her from the bottom of his heart, Lance wouldn't bear his niece singing "Let it Go" one more time, especially considering she hollered more than she sang.

He barely had taken a step out of his room before his mother was suddenly standing in front of him, arms folded and a dangerous look in her eyes. The young man struggled to hide a smile in front of this woman who was a head smaller than him.

"Is there anything I can do for you, Mamá?"

"What do you think you're doing?" she asked back, her voice warm despite her threatening attitude.

"I'm being the best uncle my niece and nephew could ever hope for?" Lance hazarded with a sly smile.

His mother couldn't help but smile too.

"You already are, hijo mío," she sighed, "but you shouldn't give in to all of their whims."

"But she gave me _the look_ again! You know, teary eyes and shaking voice and she did _this thing_ with her lips!" Lance defended himself, mimicking his niece's signature pout.

To this, his mother laughed wholeheartedly.

"Alright, alright, you can go. _Pero, por favor_ , remember to take care of yourself as much as you take care of those two little monsters," Lance's mother asked him.

The boy only smiled back, they both knew Lance was the kind of person who cared for others before they cared for themselves. Even in space he would have put his life on the line in order to save his friends.

Lance walked to the living room, his blanket flying like a cape behind him. Nathan and Lilí were waiting for him, sat on each side of the sofa so that Lance had to sit in the middle.

"What do you want me to suffer?" the young man teased the children.

Nathan frowned and his uncle realised how much the kid looked like him when he was his age. Lance wondered if he had been as difficult to handle when he was a child… Well, he was sure he was.

"We're not going to make you _suffer_ anything," the little boy started. "You will _love_ the movie."

It was more an order than a reassurance and Lance raised one brow, grinning. Yup, Nathan was definitely a younger version of him.

"What movie, then?"

The kids answered immediately in unison.

"The Little Mermaid!"

 _Oh, God, no._

* * *

"Under the sea, under the sea…"

There was Lance, singing along with the kids to annoy their father, Lance's big brother, Alonzo. The latter had a frying pan in hand and was threatening to hit his little brother if he didn't shut up.

"Nobody beat us, fry us or eat us in fricassee!" Lance kept on singing while dodging the pan that was heading to his chest.

He was going to carry on with the song when a violent coughing spell left him breathless. The teenager was forced to lean against the table in order to stand. He raised a begging look to his brother, asking him for help.

"Hah! See! It's karma!" Alonzo triumphantly stated with a grin.

It was unbelievable how much Alonzo reminded Lance of Hunk. The older man handed his little brother a glass of water with a more genuine smile.

"Don't die on me now, Lance! Who would take care of the kids for me if you weren't there anymore?" he said jokingly at first, but then his look became darker as he remembered Lance had been gone for years.

When the ex-pilot of the Blue Lion finally managed to breathe properly again, he had a similar sadness in his eyes. The little kids father was sure his sibling's thoughts had followed the same path as his own.

"Tell me, Alonzo… How long have I been away?" Lance asked, not daring to look the other in the eyes. "I mean… I don't even know how old I am, now…"

Lilí wrapped her arms around her uncle's torso, snuggling her head against Lance's chest. Her breath was suddenly very irregular, and Lance lifted her in his arms to hug her tight. He ran a comforting hand through the girl's hair to calm her down, though his gaze was intensely focused on the floor near Alonzo.

"We… We didn't hear from you for two years, Lance…"

Lance gasped and he quickly put his niece back on the ground. Considering they were in August, he was now nineteen years old. He had surely spent his birthday fighting the Galra without even noticing… this was such a weird, sudden realisation. He wondered how his mother had felt the whole time he was missing. He suddenly felt very faint.

"Lance?! Lance, can you hear me? Lance?! LANCE!" Alonzo shouted while catching his little brother in his arms.

Lance's eyelids slowly shut down and for one second he heard someone else's voice calling his name. Keith's voice was echoing in his mind when Lance passed out.

* * *

Keith was trapped in a room he didn't recognize. It was dark, except for a bright light that was shining directly into his eyes, blinding him, and a stale smell hung in the air. He needed to escape, he needed to hide and flee. If they found him, the red paladin was sure they would kill him.

Slowly, cautious not to make any noise, Keith stood up and ran along the wall, one hand on the cold surface to give him some direction. His breathing was jerky and he tried not to gulp in too much air every time he took a breath.

Eventually, he came across what Keith assumed was the door, and he noticed there weren't any windows in the room. He tried to push the door, in vain, and suddenly he noted a hole at eye level, he recognized a gap where light was pouring through. When the paladin looked through the gap, he saw one of his friends standing there.

"Lance! Lance, can you hear me? I can't find a way out of here!" Keith begged.

The sharpshooter stared down at Keith, his expression ice cold.

"You need help, buddy?" Lance asked in a sharp tone, a sinister smile on his lips.

"Yes! Lance, we're going to die here if you don't help me!"

The blue paladin laughed scornfully.

"It's too late, Keith," the Cuban spat, his harsh stare boring right into Keith's eyes. "The last time I offered to help you, you turned it down."

At these words, the blue paladin walked away without a glance. Keith hit the door desperately several times with his fists, wanting his friend to come back, to help him get out of this dark place.

"Hey, you're on your own, now," Lance's voice echoed in Keith's mind. "You should be delighted."

* * *

Keith woke up with a start, panting and sweating heavily. He frantically searched for the lightswitch and light flooded the bedroom when the paladin finally hit the button. Keith looked around, dizzy and lost, and he ran a hand through his hair to try calm down his panic attack. The nightmare had been way too real, and it still felt so real that the red paladin needed to keep reminding himself that Lance and he were fine and that the dark place had never existed…

Hah, who was he kidding? The Dark Place existed, and it always would. It had always been about this "Dark Place". It was all in his head, anyway.

Nonetheless, Keith picked up his phone which was lying beside him.

'Hey, Lance. You okay?' #sent

Minutes had passed and Lance hadn't messaged him back yet. Was he so angry that Keith declined his invitation to come home with him that he didn't want to talk to him anymore?

Keith's fingers started typing without even him realising, and the new message was sent before he could read it.

'Lance, I need to be sure you're fine. Please, answer me.'

#sent

* * *

Lance's eyelids slowly opened, revealing his storm blue eyes. He was feeling dizzy and his vision was blurred by tears.

"What happened?" the ex-paladin struggled to ask, his mouth dry.

Someone sighed in relief beside him and his youngest sister, Selena, appeared in his vision.

"Alonzo told me you passed out when you realised how much time you'd spent in space," the woman explained, helping her little brother to drink a bit of water. "Are you feeling better now?"

"I think so… uh, Selena? Where's Keith?"

The way the woman's eyebrows drew together suggested to Lance that the question was unexpected.

"What are you talking about? Who's Keith? Is he cute?"

"Stop it, Sé'!" a man's voice ordered, young but imperious. "Don't you dare try stealing Lance's mystery boyfriend!" the voice then added in a much more joking tone.

The ex-pilot of the Blue Lion had a hard time following the conversation, and the intervention of his brother, Leo, wasn't helping him at all.

"No, he's not my boyfriend. Keith. Mullet. I heard him say my name. Or did I?... god, why does my head hurt so much?"

"I may or may not have hit your head against the doorway when I carried you in here," Leo admitted with an almost proud grin.

Meanwhile, Selena was yelling so loudly that everyone in the house could hear: "MAMÁ! LANCE SAID HE HEARD HIS BOYFRIEND'S VOICE, I THINK HE MAY HAVE A CONCUSSION! WHAT DO WE DO?"

"No, I never said he was my boyfriend, Sé!" Lance complained, grimacing with pain.

"MAMÁ, HE SAYS THE GUY ISN'T HIS BOYFRIEND BUT HE KEEPS TALKING ABOUT HIM! HE DIDN'T ANSWER WHEN I ASKED IF HE WAS CUTE!"

" _Quiznak_ , stop being so loud…" Lance begged her, hands covering his ears to try and muffle the sound of her voice.

"MAMÁ! HE'S NOW USING WORDS THAT DON'T EXIST!"

Leaning against the sofa to keep his balance, Leo was having the time of his life, almost choking with uncontrollable laughter. Selena's reactions and Lance's confused and angry looks were the best things he had ever seen, and it could have continued for a while if their mother hadn't showed up.

"Selena, stop bothering your brother!" the woman scolded her with a disapproving twist of her lips. "I'm sure he'll tell us about his boyfriend later if he chooses to, let him rest for the moment."

Leo's laughter returned with a greater intensity and Lance couldn't help but shout.

"MAMÁ! KEITH IS NOT-"

"Oh, his name is Keith? That's a cute name. Why haven't you mentioned him before?"

With a hopeless shrug, Lance gave up and put the blanket back over his head, desperately trying to avoid his family's embarrassing behaviour. When Lance finally managed to dispose of the three of them, it was Nathan's turn to come back to his uncle, Lilí following close behind.

"Are you okay, Lance?" the little boy asked worriedly, twisting his fingers.

"I'm sorry if I scared you," the ex-space pilot reassured with a slight smile. "Don't worry about me, I just need to… get used to things again."

The two children jumped on his lap in less than a second, hugging him tight without knowing what to say. They stayed like that for a while before sharing a look and running away. Once they were gone, Lance let out a long sigh and gazed at the ceiling. He had never thought being back on Earth would be so... awkward. He had been away from his family for two long years and yet he felt like he had only been gone for two months. He couldn't even imagine what his family had had to cope with.

Lance reached for his pocket but remembered his phone wasn't working. He needed to hear from his team, he missed them so much, especially after this weird awakening. He was heading to the computer in his room when a high-pitched voice stopped him.

"You're not allowed to be up and about!" Lilí scolded her uncle, hands on her hips in the same fashion Lance's mom did. "Nathan and I are going to take care of you!"

Lance swallowed and nodded slowly, going back to sit on the couch with a tense smile. He made a silent prayer for his life and patted the sofa next to him. The kids decided to watch another movie – _please not Frozen again_ \- which turned out to be Lilo & Stitch. Lance glanced at the children beside him. _Aliens, huh?_ He cracked a smile and put his arms around the siblings who sighed happily. The movie hadn't been on for two minutes before Lilí jumped on her feet and started dancing like the characters on screen. Nathan quickly joined his sister and tried copying her moves, struggling with the coordination. He was clearly finding it hard to move his hips, arms and feet at the same time.

With a huge grin, Lance leapt up and positioned himself between the kids. He clapped his hands and showed the kids what dancing really was.

"Smile for the camera!" Selena exclaimed, standing in the doorway, a hand on her hips and the other one wielding her phone.

Her little brother winked to the device and carried on with his dance, now encouraged by his family. He was having so much fun he was heavily disappointed when the music ended and Lance glanced at the television with a frown.

"We definitely need to find you a grass skirt!" Selena announced with a grin. "I bet you wouldn't even dare to wear it."

"Watch me," Lance challenged with an evil smile, already picturing himself rocking the outfit.

At the end of the movie, the whole family was sitting in the living-room, including Lance's grandparents. Twelve pairs of eyes were focused on the TV screen, either sat on the floor, on chairs, on the table, on the sofa or just leaning against a wall.

"Hey, Lance. Were the aliens as weird as these ones?" Leo asked, genuinely interested, lying on the floor, his head propped up by his arm.

"I would have loved to have an alien like Stitch on the ship!" the ex-pilot laughed wholeheartedly. "But no, I mean, most of them are so evolved… Like, the Arusians are basically dramatic humanoid snails, and—"

"Are some aliens really cute? And, I mean _cute_ cute." Leo teased him again, his smile growing wider when the ex-paladin blushed. "Oooh, _that_ cute, huh?"

"I-I mean, most of them look like us… Just a different skin colour, or they just have some horns or tails, but… Yeah."

Nyma appeared in his mind, and the shame of having been fooled by her flirting heated his cheeks again.

"A-And there were mermaids, too," Lance added to distract his thoughts. "Like, real mermaids, living under water, with tails, and jellyfish. The place was… safe and warm!"

At these words, Lance burst out with laugher and his siblings glanced at each other, assuming he was mad with fever. Nathan took his uncle's hand and put a cookie in it. It was black, looked like ashes, and smelt like sulphur. However, Lance forced a smile and ate it under the concerned gaze of his siblings. His face rapidly turned to green and he ran to the nearest plant pot to throw up the cookie, sweating heavily.

"Was it good?" Lilí asked with a big smile, only just coming back from the kitchen where she had been.

"Y-Yes, delicious," Lance muttered, struggling against his stomach which was making leaps in his belly.

"There's another one for you!" the little girl announced proudly, her smile bright.

"I think I'll pass," his uncle excused himself while taking deep breaths.

Alonzo was trying not to laugh and ended up biting his fist, weird noises coming from his shattered breath.

* * *

"Keith, are you alright?" Shiro questioned with a frown. "I've been here watching you for ten _doboshes_ and you haven't even noticed… Is there something that's bothering you?"

The younger man turned to his leader.

"End training sequence", Keith commanded to the AI whilst reaching for a towel. He took the time to wipe the sweat off of his face before he spoke again. "Nothing is bothering me, Shiro, I was just… I needed to exercise," the red paladin evaded.

The paladin of the Black Lion seemed particularly unconvinced. He sighed, noticing how remarkably Keith had dodged his first question, but the black paladin wasn't going to make him spill the beans. That was something the younger man really liked about Shiro, he was never one to force him to express his feelings, but Keith knew he would be there if he needed someone to talk to.

The paladin of the Red Lion sheepishly made a crooked smile.

"Have you been here all day?" Shiro asked, raising one brow.

"No, I've been with the Lions most of the day, I've just got here a few _vargas_ ago." Keith lied, the same smile still on his lips.

Shiro nodded with a tired smile. He had been in the hangar with Black all day long, thus he was fully aware of the man's lie.

"Are you coming to dinner?"

Keith looked back to his jacket which was lying on the ground, then to Shiro who was holding the door open.

"Yeah..." he answered after a hesitation.

He gathered his things, rolled them into a ball and followed Shiro. All they could hear was the sound of their footsteps on the floor. The ship sounded so empty when the rest of the team wasn't there with them. Every corridor seemed too large and too long, as if the castle was now the size of a planet.

Coran and Allura tried their best to lift the atmosphere at lunch. Shiro was smiling, chatting happily with the Alteans as he had done for a week, and Keith was eating, quiet as always. Maybe even quieter than he was usually.

The younger paladin didn't even realise his friends had stopped talking until he felt something moving on his neck. A naked tail suddenly appeared in front of his eyes which belonged to a tiny mouse which was hanging on a strand of his black hair.

"What are you doing here?" Keith asked, surprised. He held his hand so that the alien animal could climb on. His brows frowned when he felt more little paws moving in his hair. "Hey, stop it, already!" the man cried, but it was already too late.

He heard the shutter of a camera and glared at Shiro angrily.

"I'm sending that to Pidge", the black paladin teased with a sly smile. Allura definitely had a bad influence on the guy.

Keith gritted his teeth and quickly removed the mice from his head, counting them to make sure that he hadn't missed any of them. Allura guffawed, covering her mouth with one hand to hide the smile that spread on her face, and Coran turned his back to the red paladin, his shoulders shaking under his laughter.

"What the…" Keith began, quickly stopped from cursing by an upset gaze from the ginger haired man.

The black haired boy ran a hand through his hair and found regular knots. After a few _ticks_ , he realized that the mice had been braiding his hair He swore under his breath, already picturing Pidge laughing out loud and sending the photo to all of her contacts, and walked out of the room.

"Keith, wait!" Allura voiced in concern, but he was already too far away.

The princess sighed, worried for her friend. She exchanged a look with her two companions and together they started working on a way to lift their friend's mood, putting all their hearts into the elaboration of a plan.

Keith's steps led him to the common room and he dropped down on a couch. His head hit the back of the sofa and he stayed in this position for a long time, staring at the wall in front of him without actually seeing it. He closed his eyes and listened to the quiet sound of the room. Half asleep from the terrible nightmares he kept having, his mind began playing tricks on him. Suddenly, he could hear the distant echoes of past conversations that had happened in this room. He could hear Shiro motivating them for the fights to come; he could hear Allura scolding them when they couldn't work as a team; he could hear Hunk dreaming about meals he couldn't cook on board; and, eventually, he could hear Lance's annoying voice challenging him. Keith swore he could still hear Lance's laughter even after he opened his eyes. Several _vargas_ had passed without him noticing, and he straightened himself up, his whole body stiff.

When he stood up, a thick, blue blanket fell on the ground and Keith looked around, searching for whoever had covered him with it. Coran was nowhere to be found, though, and the red paladin caught himself smiling at pictures that had been pinned on the common room wall. Some of them had been taken by Pidge when the team had gone their separate ways, but some others were older. There were even some pictures of the ancient paladins of Voltron and some that Keith guessed to be of Altea.

There was a digital panel like the ones that were in the navigation room, and the paladin of the Red Lion went from one picture to another, sometimes zooming in on them. Once more, he found himself staring at one photo in particular, his favourite. In this one, Pidge had asked her father and her brother to take the photo so that the whole crew could be in the picture.

Pidge was at the top right of the picture, a bright smile on her face, she was holding two of the mice in her arms and the other two were on her shoulders. Sitting on the ground, closer to the camera was Hunk, wiping a tear away as if someone had just told him a good joke. Shiro was in the middle of the picture, arms folded, a discreet smile showing on his lips. Coran and Allura were standing in front. The man had an arm lightly resting on the princess's shoulders in a protecting and paternal manner. On the bottom left of the picture, sat on the ground, Lance had a wide grin on his face, as self-confident as he had always been. Standing between Shiro and him was Keith, close to his team leader and for once facing the others. His posture and the soft smile on his face said a lot about his feelings towards the other members of the crew. They were his family, he finally had a place he belonged...

And now it all was gone.

"Mooooo!"

Keith was startled from his wistful reminiscing and instantly turned round in a defensive pose. Even without his bayard, Keith was an exceptional fighter, and hand-to-hand was his speciality. He had been consistently visiting the training deck in an aim to keep up with his skills and to improve his reflexes.

Two big teary eyes greeted him and the paladin soon relaxed, adopting a more casual stance.

"Hey, Kaltenecker," Keith saluted him with a soft voice. "What are you doing in the common room?"

"Moooo!"

"Let's get you back to your… field? C'mon, don't be like Lance!" he added when the cow refused to move. He let out a sigh, giving up. "Don't you dare come into my room, Kaltenecker. That's not your place."

* * *

The thunder was rumbling and lightning was lighting the cloudy night sky. Nathan and Lilí had gone home with Alonzo, and only Lance, Leo, Selena, and their parents remained in the house. Their grandparents lived in the neighbouring house, which was tinier but had much a bigger garden.

Lance was curled up in his bed, he'd pulled the blanket up to his nose and his eyes were focused on the photos on the wall. He was no longer motivated to go on his computer, and it would have been a bad idea anyway considering the weather. His little star-shaped nightlight was glowing on the opposite wall, bathing the room with a soft, calming light.

The ex-paladin was still feeling sick after the intake of his nephew's poisonous cookies and the fatigue was beginning to get to him. He twitched in shock when a thunderbolt hit an electricity pole nearby and the neighbourhood fell into darkness.

"What the hell?!" Lance shouted, throwing the blanket away and getting to his feet.

He heard the sound of steps in the other rooms and concluded that his siblings were reacting the same as he was. The ex-spaceship pilot jumped on his chair, frantically praying his computer would start up. It was just as he thought, the electricity was down, and there were no way for him to go on the Internet anymore.

Lance swore several times before retreating back to bed, his fist clenched tightly as he realised he no longer had any way to contact his friends.

* * *

The day after the blackout, the McClains found out their router had crashed, and Lance stayed a whole hour kneeling in front of the white box, whining. While Leo and Selena were using 4G, Lance was wearing an empty gaze he couldn't shake off. His social life was gone, as simple as that.

"Is everything alright, _pequeño_?" a soft voice asked the boy when he was spacing out.

Lance raised his head to see his _abuela_ staring at him intensely. A sheepish smile spread on his lips when he answered.

"I was just thinking." He waited for a sarcastic answer, oblivious to the fact he was talking to his grandmother instead of any other person he knew. "My phone is broken, the router is too, so I have no way of contacting my friends. You know, the ones I was in space with. Some of them are back on Earth and some are still up there, but I don't even know if they're alright. I'm a terrible friend, aren't I?" he added in a breath, his smile still there but it wasn't reaching his eyes.

"Is it being a terrible friend to worry about them, _pequeño_?" the woman questioned with a smile and a glow of her glasses that reminded the boy of Pidge. "Does it make you a terrible friend to miss them? Remember that your friends see you brighter than you can see yourself, _mi cielito_."

Her grandson smiled more softly as she walked away. He knew she was right, even if it was sometimes hard for him to believe.

* * *

In the early afternoon, while Lance was lying on the sofa without anything to do or think about, he was surprised to see two people enter his eyesight. Selena bent over him, fists on her hips, and Leo folded his arms in a determined manner.

"What do you want?" Lance asked with a suspicious frown.

"We gotta walk you." Leo affirmed with a firm nod.

"Mamá said." Selena emphasized, already gripping Lance's arm and dragging him with her.

"Wait, waiiiit! I don't want to go out, especially not with _you_! And I don't need to be _walked_!" the younger one yelled. "Guys, let me at least put some shoes on!" he whined one last time, glancing at the sky while he was thrown into a car.

Selena threw his sneakers on the back seat and Leo drove the three of them to the town, ignoring his brother's constant complaining.

"We need to get you new clothes", Selena commanded imperiously. "You've been wearing the same clothes in space for two years, _hermanito_ , they're old and dirty. And you need to do something about your hair."

"I love my clothes, and- WAIT, WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM WITH MY HAIR?!"

"Old-fashioned," Leo instantly affirmed.

"Too long," their sister added with a grave nod.

Lance dramatically gasped, offended, but he couldn't think of a way to disprove them. He lifted one hand to his forehead and observed a strand of his hair. It was now so long it could touch the bottom of his nose. Perhaps his siblings weren't so wrong, after all. He rubbed the back of his neck and felt that the hair had grown much longer than he'd thought.

"Haircut first," the boy whispered, defeated.

After all, he needed to be presentable if he had to hang out in town: many people were going to be there, including potential cuties, and Lance would have hated to disappoint them.

As soon as he entered the hairdresser's, the man was blessed by the view of two beautiful young women working hard. He put on his most handsome smile and walked straight to the reception. One of the employees noticed him and she tucked her razor blade away before coming toward him.

"Hello, sir," she welcomed him with a pretty smile he wasn't going to forget soon. "How can I help you?"

Lance's heart raced as he looked into her eyes. He had a thing for dark-eyed people, and the girl was definitely appealing. He opened his mouth to speak in his most charming voice, leisurely leaning against the desk, when someone else spoke up.

"I'm going to attend to him, Megan, you can go back to your work."

Lance frowned heavily, frustrated to be hushed like that. Megan gave him an apologetic smile and Lance had to struggle to stay polite with the woman who was now coming to him. She had large shoulders and short hair cut in a military style. Clearly, this person wasn't engaging at all.

" _Aw, man…_ " he thought desperately.

Fortunately, the military woman was more skilled with scissors and razors than she was when it came to talking to people. Lance anxiously saw his hair fall on the ground, again and again, more and more brown strands dropping, and he was starting to get truly scared when she announced it was over.

The man had to blink a few time to realize it was really his reflection in the mirror. He ran a hand through his hair, making the woman sigh because he was already destroying her work, and his eyes suddenly brightened.

"That's awesome!" he declared with a huge grin to the woman.

She raised her eyebrows, obviously not expecting it, and she addressed him a slight smile.

"The others won't believe it!" Lance added while getting on his feet.

He quickly paid the woman and left the shop in a hurry. Only when he walked out he remembered his team wasn't there with him anymore. He took a deep breath to clear his mind, shook his head, and headed to his brother and his sister with a big smile.

"What have you done to your hair?!" Leo screamed with a high-pitched cry. "Lance, I trusted you!"

"You're jealous", the other replied with confidence. "I can have all the girls I want, now."

Selena waved to mean that, for once, she agreed with her youngest brother.

"You can't have all the girls you want", Leo challenged his brother with an almost angry look.

"Let me get some new clothes, and fucking watch me," Lance affirmed with a wink which pissed his brother off.

Making Leo angry was by far one of the funniest activities the ex-paladin could do, and he was eventually glad that his siblings had dragged him with them.

Fortunately, Leo and Selena both shared the same love as their brother for shopping. They spent half the afternoon going from store to store and trying on clothes. Most of them were for fun, and Leo even ended up with a skin-tight bright pink dress. "I'll wear it for New Year's Eve!" he announced with a proud grin when he bought it, receiving weird looks from the saleswoman.

Lance was in the main aisle of another clothes shop when he noticed a huddle of three girls laughing. He greeted them with his brightest smile which made two of them blush and look away. The boy quickly glanced at the shelf in front of him and grabbed two shirts.

"Excuse me, beautiful ladies… I have a slight case of colour blindness and I can't figure out which one would suit me the best… These t-shirts are both red, when I look at them." He lied with a sheepish smile.

One of the girls, who had long dark curly hair, pointed at the shirt he was holding in his left hand and politely indicated to him it was the blue one while the other one was red. Lance noticed how slowly she was talking, as if he was dumb, but didn't show it. Instead, he smiled even wider.

"The red one would suit you the best!" the girl in the middle intervened.

"Definitely the blue one!" her friend frowned, her black hair getting into her eyes at each blink.

They were both having a pretty bad argument when their third friend joined them, much shier. She was holding another fabric in her hands and offered it to Lance.

"This one is purple," she said in a soft voice. "The fabric is light and loose, and the colour will suit your blue eyes. You should take this one."

"Thank you," Lance spoke up, astonished. "Hey, wait! Please, I don't even know your name!" he shouted when she started to walk away, dragging her friends with her, but she never looked back. "I guess I should buy it", he whispered to himself with a bit of sadness piercing through his voice.

When he got back to the car, he had bought an impressive amount of clothes, and the only one to outcompete him was his brother. Surprisingly, Selena had been much more reasonable this time, but it must have had to do with the purchase of her new tablet.

Lance got into some new clothes before he agreed to go and eat crepes with his siblings. He chose the purple shirt he had got earlier, black skinny jeans and added a three quarter-length sleeved jacket he had bought to complete his outfit. Now, he felt irresistible.

"Hey, Leo. Watch me!" Lance challenged his brother when they arrived near the crêperie.

He noticed a girl with a side braid who was nonchalantly sipping her soda. She was wearing sunglasses and he saw her raise an eyebrow when he approached.

"Hello, pretty lady. Why do you need to hide those beautiful eyes when the brightest star in this world is you?"

"Excuse me, you are?" she said while looking over her glasses at him.

"The name's Lance, and I'm already falling for you," the man grinned while dropping to one knee. "May I know the name of the beautiful creature standing in front of me?"

He winked, holding a hand to her with the most seductive voice he could muster.

"Sure. I'm taken." The girl snorted with a snobbish twist of lips.

Lance blinked a few times before he got up with a confused look, not able to make any sound. Leo was laughing out loud, earning weird glares from onlookers and Selena was desperately trying to hide her laughter.

"Shut up" Lance groaned when he re-joined them, sitting in the nearest chair and burying his face into his arms.

"That was so lame!" Leo kept laughing while taking a chair in front of his brother.

"Did it work in space?" their sister mocked.

The ex-pilot was about to tell her to fuck off when a very pretty boy came to their table.

"Good afternoon, lady and gentlemen. My name is Gabriel, and I will be _your_ waiter," the man introduced himself, staring intensely at Lance.

"Hi, Gabriel," Selena chuckled, eyes on her little brother. "It's a real pleasure."

Leo had a huge smirk while he noticed the change in Lance's attitude, his phone ready to take a photo.

Lance raised an eyebrow to take in the waiter. He had dark brown, chocolatey eyes and his soft-looking medium-length hair was tied up into a ponytail. His uniform fit him just right and Lance couldn't help but grin widely in appreciation.

"Hey, Gabriel. Do you work here every day? 'cause I would be heavily disappointed if I came and you were nowhere to be found."

"I don't, but I would definitely enjoy seeing you around."

Lance beamed, and so did Gabriel. Hey, Lance thought, smugly, maybe the day wasn't wasted, after all!


	3. Don't sink my ship!

**Chapter 3 – Don't sink my ship!**

The sky was getting dark when Lance, Leo and Selena judged that it was time to go back. Gabriel had already finished his shift and had spent a whole hour sitting at their table. Eventually, it was time for Lance and him to part, and Gabriel wanted to make a final move, already feeling the need to see this guy again. He leapt up and gently put his hand on Lance's arm to earn his full attention. Leo and Selena quickly disappeared to pay for the meal, leaving the two boys alone.

"Erm, Lance" Gabriel faltered, his heart racing against his ribs almost painfully. He faked a confident smile but he knew Lance wasn't fooled. "This is my number, so you know, call me whenever you want to. I'll always have time for a cute guy like you!"

A crooked smile formed on Lance's lips.

"I'm sorry, but my phone has fallen into water and now it's dead."

It hurt, it hurt so much, but Gabriel kept on smiling despite feeling like he had been hit by a bus. Twice. And it must have had wheels full of cacti thorns.

"Oh, okay, I'm sorry, I thought you… Well, never mind. Thanks for coming!"

Lance's eyebrows knitted at the professional and distant tone. He played the conversation in his head again, trying to find when he had failed, and realized how much he had messed up.

"Wait, no! I didn't mean it like that!" Lance screamed with a loud laugh. "My phone _did_ fall into a puddle!"

"So, you mean you actually _can't_ call me?" the waiter asked with hope, trying to understand what it was all about.

"Yes! I need to get a new phone, otherwise I'd totally call you! And I will." Lance added with a more seductive tone and a wink.

Gabriel smiled back, and this time it was a genuine, joyful smile. He stuffed a paper in Lance's fist, his fingers brushing against Lance's a little longer. The ex-paladin quickly took his hand and squeezed it gently with a radiant grin.

"How about we meet here again in two days?" Lance offered, his siblings eyeing him with an half-amused, half-bored look – were they the ones expected to drive him here again?

"I'm not working on that day," the waiter stated with a sly smile. "Sounds like a date to me."

Lance's smile spread even wider. "Heh, I guess it is. Two pm?"

"Lance, we _have to_ go! Stop flirting, kiss him and say goodbye to your boyfriend!" Leo's voice interrupted him, clearly annoyed.

Gabriel nodded, the hint of a smile on his lips. The youngest boy rolled his eyes, making his new potential boyfriend chuckle, and addressed him a wink.

"Be sure to be here in time! I promise you, you will never forget this date!" Lance declared to Gabriel as he walked away. He had no idea yet how right he was.

"I'll be there. And try to get a phone, pretty boy!"

Lance laughed and assured him he would. When he joined his siblings, Leo raised one brow, one hand on his hips in a very playful fashion.

"You really like this boy, don't you?" he scoffed, staring at Lance's pink cheeks.

"Don't be jealous, Leo, I'm sure you'll find a nice girl someday. Hopefully she'll be deaf and won't understand your poor humour."

"As long as she's able to enjoy the view, I've got a chance!"

* * *

As soon as they got home, their dad greeted them with dinner, an extra-large family size pizza, along with salad and a huge cake for dessert.

"Are we celebrating something?" Lance asked after a pretty long silence during which he had been staring at the meal, drooling in anticipation.

"We hadn't properly celebrated your return yet, so I thought it would be a good idea", his mother replied with a smile, her eyes sparkling with tears.

Her children rushed straight to embrace her and Lance snorted loudly. It was something to witness your mother crying, but it was even worse when you knew how much she had had to go through because of you.

"Don't worry, he won't disappear again, _mi querida_ ", her husband reassured her, his voice warm and soft.

Lance's smile dropped at this thought but he quickly sported another grin, this one a bit forced. He felt terribly bad about wanting to fly Blue again because it would also mean leaving his family behind one more time, though he couldn't help but miss the sensation so much. And he missed his team almost as much as he had missed his family when he was on the Castle of Lions, if not more – and that was making him feel terrible.

"Lance, are you okay?" his father enquired with a bit of worry.

The boy felt all the eyes on him, especially his _abuela_ 's concerned gaze which was much heavier than the others.

"He must be thinking about Gabriel", Selena teased with an evil smirk, her voice full of innuendos while she shot a knowing look to her little brother. She saved him without even realising.

"Who's Gabriel?"

There it was. A laugh escaped Lance's lips as his mother leant over the table with a conspiratorial attitude.

"Lance's new boyfriend." Selena stated.

"Think about all the poor broken hearted aliens, now!" Leo sighed, the corners of his mouth twisted in a sad pout.

"Gabriel is _not_ my boyfriend… yet." Lance grinned with malice. He put his head on one of his hands and watched each member of his family while they took the information in.

It was their father's turn to sigh and his face mirrored Leo's perfectly when he spoke. "Be nice with this poor guy, Lance."

"Don't worry, I'm always nice!" he smirked slyly.

"We didn't need to know that." Selena cringed with a disgusted look that caused a devilish laugh to her little brother. Sometimes he could be really frightening…

* * *

Lance closed his bedroom door and leant against it, exhausted. He let his body slip against it and ended up sitting on the floor, back to the door, his head resting against the wood. His gaze wandered on the ceiling, then it moved to the computer which hadn't been switched on for years.

The ex-paladin awkwardly got up, struggling more than he should have to make his muscles cooperate, and walked to the chair that was facing the machine.

He pressed the power button and a protesting roar escaped the engine as the screen lit up. The computer expulsed a thick cloud of dust that made Lance cough and made the boy's eyes started tearing up. Nobody must have switched it on since his first day at the Galaxy Garrison.

The screen lit up, blinding Lance for a few _ticks_ –no, _seconds_ ; he was back on Earth, they used _seconds_ -, and he narrowed his eyes to look at the display. The old Windows design, all squares and angles, almost made him laugh, however he quickly noticed the teardrops that were staining his cheeks. After some more _dobo_ — _MINUTES_ , Lance figured out the flow wouldn't stop and he ceased to wipe the tears off, giving in to wistfulness.

His desktop finally showed up, and the now-adult couldn't help but sob grossly while staring at the photo which was his wallpaper. He must have been something like fourteen years old on the picture. His hair was carefully spiked with hair gel and he was wearing sunglasses on top of his head –he must still have them somewhere in a drawer. In the photo, he had a huge grin on his lips, his arm lazily resting around a girl's shoulders –what was her name, again?... Mary?... Mina?... Manon! She was from a foreign country, he remembered! The girl was smiling too, and in her eyes Lance could see the reflection of the photographer, Ryan, who was his best friend at the time. In spite of all the efforts he had put into it, Lance had never managed to date either of them, and God knew he had tried…

The year after that, he had gone to Galaxy Garrison and he had never heard from any of them since then.

Figuring that he couldn't use his computer to go on the Internet, the ex-paladin decided to go through his old files. The folders were full of secondary school photos in which he was smiling with his friends. His chin resting in his palm, eyes focused on the bright screen, Lance wondered what had become of them. He barely remembered the names of some of them, and this thought made him sad. They surely had forgotten him too… What if the same thing was going to happen with his Voltron teammates? What if they were to forget him? Sure, they had saved the universe together and they had gone through an unforgettable adventure together, but Lance hadn't been the most outstanding paladin of them all… Shiro had always been their leader, always there to motivate them and unite the team. Pidge was the smartest person Lance had ever known, she had saved them so many times Lance had stopped counting, and she also was the sassiest little gremlin. Hunk was the team's linchpin, he was there whenever they needed him, he was there to cover them and to make them smile when the situation was difficult to handle. Hunk was also brilliant when it came to technologies and cooking. As for Keith… Well, Keith was the most talented fighter and pilot Lance knew, even if it was a pain for him to admit. And Allura had showed she was made for leading and driving, either castle ships or robot lions… She had been so talented with Blue, she was a fast learner and she was skilled for everything she did, just like Keith. They were the "Chosen Ones", in Lance's opinion. Altean and Galra. They would have been perfect for each other…

Lance let out a long sigh, his heart in his throat in a very painful way, and the tears doubled in intensity.

He missed them. He missed his team so much. Even if he had always been a fifth or a seventh or more wheel, even if he had never been useful to them, Lance missed them so much. The only thought they could forget him was devastating the ex-paladin in a way almost nothing else could.

He angrily punched the keyboard with his fist and the computer shut down with a loud protesting noise that didn't augur well.

"Fuck this!" Lance swore, his eyebrows furrowing even deeper when he saw that some keyboard keys were stuck to his hand.

The Cuban got up and unplugged the machine without showing any mercy towards the old computer. Then he headed to his bed, eyes closed tightly in an attempt to escape from his sinister memories.

* * *

The day after passed fast. Lance got to babysit Nathan and Lilí, and this time he managed to avoid his niece's terrible cooking skills. Eventually, he understood why nobody let the little girl go near the kitchen –or just go near any kind of food. Every time Lance glanced at his deceased phone, he could see a picture of the Castle of Lions crew appearing in his head, and, only then, Gabriel's silhouette, blurred as if he was standing into a thick fog.

Every member of Lance's family guessed he had a date planned for the day after just by looking at him. The ex-paladin was so nervous that he couldn't stay in place for more than a few seconds, and his siblings couldn't help but make fun of him, same for his parents.

When the time came, Lance was already laid on his bed, his eyes wide open and staring at the ceiling above him. He hoped so much his date would be alright and that he wouldn't screw up…

* * *

The sunlight illuminated the room through the light blue curtains, and a little rainbow appeared on the floor near the bed. Lance glanced at the colourful spot and he decided to get up despite the fact he had barely got a minute of sleep. The room seemed to capsize and the boy had to lean against the wall to find his balance.

When he miraculously managed to make his way to the bathroom, Lance's reflection in the mirror almost led him to go back under the sheets. The man who was staring at him in the mirror –Lance firmly refused to accept that the guy was actually himself- had pretty bad dark circles under his eyes. His hair was a messy crest of which some strands fell onto his forehead, and his blue eyes were bloodshot due to an obvious lack of sleep.

"I CAN'T GO OUT LIKE THIS!" Lance yelled, and he most likely woke up his whole family doing so.

A loud noise came from the wall, and he supposed Leo had thrown his shoe against it in anger, it was something he used to do years ago.

A door slammed, then a second and a third, and Selena appeared right in front of her little brother, so dishevelled she looked like Chewbacca and Bigfoot's secret offspring.

"I can see the family resemblance" Leo commented from Lance's bedroom doorway, his skin and hair flawless and as awake as if he had been up for hours. Both Selena and Lance gave him a deadly glare, and he retreated with his hands up in the air in a defensive attitude. This guy would have gotten along with Pidge so much.

"Tell me you can help me!" Lance begged his sister with a puppy-eyes look. "Tell me you can fix this! I've never ever looked so bad in my life! Gabriel will leave as soon as he sees me if I go on a date like this!"

The woman took a deep breath and ran a hand through her hair, eyes closed. She took the time to straighten her brown curls and relax before she looked at Lance again.

"Keep calm, _hermanito_ , I can fix any bad face. Even if I must admit you look awful, you won't take a step out of this house until I'm finished with you." She declared in a confident and calm voice. Her blue gaze reassured her little brother who allowed himself to sigh in relief.

"Don't make me look like a Barbie, though…" The boy shivered heavily.

" _Lance_ , men can wear makeup too, you know", Selena reprimanded him with a huge scowl.

"I _know_!" He whined, his cheeks a bit redder. He had crushed more than once on men who were wearing eyeliner, and he must admit it genuinely suited them. Besides, he was sure Shiro wore some too but Lance had never managed to confirm his suspicions in spite of intense staring sessions.

Selena authoritatively made her brother sit on his bed while she gathered all the products she needed. She spent the next three hours correcting his skin tone and erasing all trace of fatigue from his face. She didn't give up, even if Lance was making her work harder than it should have been, always complaining about being hungry, tired or uglier than ever.

"Lance, for fuck's sake, shut up or I swear I'll make you look like a prostitute!" Selena eventually threatened, her voice like thunder. Surprisingly, after that Lance remained silent and stopped wriggling until his sister had finished her magic. She took a step back, looked at her brother from head to toe, and nodded with satisfaction.

"You look decent, now. Didn't you promise Gabriel you'd get a new phone, by the way?" the girl enquired, tilting her head.

Lance started and shot her a sheepish glance before he looked away. He hadn't got the time to look for a new phone and all he could hope was that Gabriel hadn't changed his mind. Not that he could have warned him, though, the waiter didn't even have Lance's number. The ex-paladin made a mental note to fix that as soon as possible and got up without replying to his sister.

He went to the bathroom and admired his fresh-looking face in the mirror. Selena could truly make miracles when she wanted to! Lance picked his new clothes and spent an impressive amount of time choosing his outfit for his date. In the end, he opted for a pair of slim blue jeans and a simple but efficient t-shirt on which it was written "Abduct me I'm alien". One last glance to the mirror assured him he was as irresistible as always, and he walked out with a tiny smile on the corner of his lips.

After lunch time, Lance criss-crossed each of the household's rooms at least four times before Leo made him sit down, his hands on Lance's shoulders pushing the young man down.

Leo had opened his mouth to let out an exasperated complaint when suddenly a ringing chimed in the house. The sharpshooter quirked a brow, looking at his brother with a gaze full of unpronounced questions.

"Lance! Somebody's here for you!" His dad called from the entrance.

Lance mechanically put a hand to his pocket where he knew his phone was supposed to be. He frowned and walked to where his father was, baffled and wondering who could be there to see him. He didn't remember having told Gabriel where he lived.

When he entered the corridor, Lance felt the urge to pause a few seconds. His heart was racing and his hands shaking… His mind must have been playing on him, the voices he was hearing couldn't be Hunk and Pidge's?!

The young boy gasped and raced over the door. He didn't even stop to greet his friends or to make sure he wasn't going to hit his father in his rush, it no longer mattered. Tears were already flooding his cheeks –ruining his sister's hard work- when Lance jumped straight onto Hunk, gripping Pidge's shirt at the same time.

The three of them landed on the ground. There was an awkward silence, only broken by Lance's heavy sobs, before Pidge and Hunk burst in laughter. The girl made her way into the hug, a huge grin on her face.

"I can't believe you guys are here!" the Cuban stammered with much difficulty.

"We were worried, we haven't heard from you for two weeks," Hunk notified his friend while hugging him even tighter.

"And you weren't even on the internet," Pidge added, wiping condensation from her glasses. "We thought you were having troubles…"

Her voice faded into a wail and her bottom lip began to quiver.

"No, no, I'm fine! I dropped my phone into a puddle and then we had a blackout!" Lance reassured them, still smiling.

The two other paladins shared a surprised look and then turned back to their friend.

Pidge was the one to put their thoughts into words, not emotional anymore. "You're kidding, aren't you?" she began, incredulous and almost cold. "You are seriously telling us that we couldn't contact you because your devices were out of order?! AFTER TWO _QUIZNAKING_ YEARS IN SPACE YOU CAN'T EVEN FIX A PHONE OR A ROUTER, LANCE? IS THAT WHAT YOU'RE TRYING TO TELL US?"

The latter laughed even louder, tears still going down his face. "I've missed you so much!"

* * *

"So, you two were in space with Lance?" Leo asked, observing their two guests. He addressed Pidge a slight smile, his head resting in his hand on the table, and the girl raised an unimpressed eyebrow. Lance glanced at Leo, then at Pidge who had cut her hair shorter than he had even known her. It suited her, though. She had explained Hunk that she wanted to differ from her brother, and she didn't want to go back to her old self. Katie was dead and buried. She was Pidge, now, she was a paladin of Voltron!

"She's seventeen, man." Blue's pilot intervened with a judging look to his big brother. "And definitely not interested in you, or in any person, as far as I know," he added with a crooked smile.

Pidge nodded absentmindedly and Leo frowned in confusion, not knowing which part she was agreeing with.

"Actually, we were with Lance since the Galaxy Garrison, I was his roommate and Pidge was our teammate for the flight simulations." Hunk specified to give the green paladin a break. "We found the Blue Lion –one of our spaceships which became Lance's- together, and that's how it all began."

"How do you feel, knowing you've saved the universe and nobody will ever acknowledge it on Earth?"

Hunk blurted a light laugh and Pidge choked on the chocolate cookie she was eating.

"Are you purposely being a jerk or were you born like that? I can't remember," Leo's little brother spat. "Nobody would believe us, and we can't even tell the Garrison. By the way, guys, have you told them you were back?"

Hunk looked down, embarrassed. Actually, he hadn't even thought about it. He didn't really know what he wanted his future to be, but after having piloted Yellow, the paladin didn't like the idea of going back to Galaxy Garrison. What would he tell them, anyway? " _Hey guys, I'm back from two years in space defeating an evil emperor who wanted to take over the universe. What's up? Oh, and we've found Shiro, and Samuel and Matthew Holt are back with Pidge, who happened to be Katie Holt._ " When he had come home, his parents were completely stunned, and they had cried for hours without letting go of their son. He guessed it was the same for Pidge and Lance. However, Hunk wanted to go back to space, and he had already told his family about it. This time, he had a way to keep in touch with them, and space was now a safe place to go, after all. His father's first reaction was to smile and give a pat on his son's back. " _You better send us a photo of that girl, Hunk!_ " the man had told him with a shit-eating grin that had made Hunk blush heavily.

"We agreed on sending them a family photo," Pidge snorted with a devilish look. "I hacked their network again and changed all the wallpaper and icons to a family reunion photo. This one, to be precise."

She took her phone out of her pocket and turned the screen to the others. The photo had been taken at their home. Matt had an arm around Pidge who was giving the middle finger to the camera. He was sporting a challenging smirk which contrasted with his usually soft attitude. In the background, Samuel Holt was standing next to his wife. She had her arms resolutely folded and was shooting a death glare to the camera, the kind of look which said "You will pay for this, I won't ever let you forget your errors". In Samuel's hand was a piece cardboard on which were written those words : "Shiro and us are back, thanks to _VOLTRON_. Kerberos mission has failed but here are greetings from the Underworld."

"Savage," Lance commented with an admiring smile.

"And clever," Hunk added with a nod. He was going to add something when the team's sharpshooter suddenly got up with an alarming look on his face. "Lance, are you okay?"

"Leo, it's almost two o'clock! I was supposed to meet Gabriel! I can't even cancel, my phone is dead!"

Pidge snorted and Hunk frowned.

"Who's Gabriel?" the latter asked, but his voice was covered by Leo's.

"Do you need my phone to cancel on your boyfriend?" the older man teased.

Pidge's eyebrows furrowed so much they were almost joining in the middle of her forehead. Beside her, Hunk was lost. Lance had a boyfriend and he didn't even know it?

"I won't cancel on him! We need to go!" the ex-paladin was halfway through the corridor when he remembered the presence of his friends. He swore under his breath and went back to them with a mildly-embarrassed look. "I… um… I need to go to town… Wanna come with me?"

"Sure! I can't wait to see you embarrass yourself in front of your boyfriend!" Pidge assured with a toothy grin which made Lance shiver. He had no clue why, but her attitude was seriously frightening him.

Hunk remained silent the entirety of the drive, and when the ex-blue paladin glanced at him, all that Lance could see was his friend lost deep in thoughts with a huge frown wrinkling his forehead.

Leo left them as soon as he parked the car, pretending to have some shopping to do. He had thought about taking Pidge and Hunk with him but ruining Lance's first date was way funnier, so he let them in his little brother's hands.

Lance glanced at his friends, concerned. The green paladin looked like she was going to murder someone and Yellow's pilot seemed to be thinking about the meaning of his existence. It was weird seeing them like that, and the sharpshooter couldn't help but worry about how this day was going to end.

"So, erm… This is gonna be awkward…" Lance sputtered without actually looking at his friends.

"Isn't it already?" Pidge smirked, and the ex-blue paladin started a bit at her sharp tone. What had he done to deserve that?!

"Lance, I need to know, why haven't you-" Hunk began but was interrupted as a man came in their direction, his long hair tied up in a ponytail and sunglasses hiding his eyes.

"Hey, Lance! I thought it was supposed to be a date. Either I was wrong or you're also poly?" the guy laughed, seemingly at ease.

"These are my friends, Pidge and Hunk" Blue's pilot introduced them with a smile. "They arrived a few _va_ —hours ago, so I couldn't leave them by themselves. Guys, this is Gabriel."

"He's afraid we're gonna embarrass him," Pidge intervened, sporting her devilish smile again. "And we're definitely going to."

"I can't wait!" Gabriel laughed while shaking their hands politely. "Any idea of where we could go or what we could do?"

"What about we sit somewhere so we can tell you all about Lance's little secrets?" the girl offered, her gaze hidden by her glasses. "I bet there are so many things you don't know about him. Actually, I'm certain of that, as even _I_ learn new things about him after many years spent together. And when I say years, I mean whole days and nights during almost five long years."

Gabriel cleared his throat nervously with a begging look to Lance who swallowed ostensibly. The ex-paladin looked at his littlest friend, trying to get what it was that she had in mind, but it resulted in frightening him even more. She had this demoniac strategist aura she sometimes had when she was thinking about a plan to make enemies surrender. WHAT HAD HE DONE TO DESERVE HER WRATH? Was she really mad because of the phone?!

"Um, guys, what about this pub over there?" Hunk proposed, pointing at a rustic building at the corner of the street. "They seem to sell desserts and I'd really fancy an ice-cream."

"As long as it's not food goo, I'm fine!" Lance said with enthusiasm.

"Food goo?" Gabriel enquired with a frown, not losing his smile.

"I have so many things to tell you," his not-yet-boyfriend replied with a grin that seemed like a private joke.

When they finally found a place to sit down, Hunk sat next to Lance, facing Gabriel and Pidge, and after the waitress had taken their orders, Gabriel was the one to speak first, desperately trying to lift the mood.

He cracked a smile, eyes on the Cuban's t-shirt. "What's with the message shirt? Is that another one of your bad pickup lines? Eh, don't lie! I witnessed your failures the other day!"

Hunk scoffed and laughed even more when Lance blushed. "What? Don't tell me he tried his lame flirting on people again? Has he tried his lines on you?" the yellow paladin said in a mocking but friendly voice.

Gabriel was going to carry on when Pidge's voice raised again, interrupting him. "Actually, Lance isn't alien but some of our friends are. We went to space, just so you know. We've been sort of stuck there for two years or so."

Lance's newest friend began to laugh and stopped quickly when he noticed they were all dead serious. He looked into Lance's eyes, who avoided the contact with an embarrassed look.

"Wait, I don't know what you're trying to do but it's not working. How could I even believe that?" Gabriel tried, less and less amused as time passed.

"She's right," Lance finally blurted, gazing straight into Gabriel's eyes. "Two years ago, three students from the Galaxy Garrison, a space travel school, mysteriously disappeared. They even talked about it on TV. You can check on the internet if you don't believe us. Three cadets: Pidge Gunderson, Hunk Garrett, and Lance McClain. Come on, check it out, I know you don't believe me."

The earthling reached for his phone in his pocket, his hand shaking a bit. He didn't break eye contact with the boy he had met two days ago, convinced he would suddenly see the three of them burst of laughter and mock his naivety.

He quickly googled "galaxy garrison cadets missing lance" without thinking further, and clicked on the first link. There were two articles, the first one about the Kerberos mission, and another one about the mysterious disappearance of three young boys. The newspapers article was dated from two years ago, and it was written that the Galaxy Garrison found out they were missing on the morning and no trace of them remained. Their clothes were still, along with their personal objects, so the runaway hypothesis wasn't the most likely explanation. Three photos were attached to the article, and even with the different haircut, Gabriel hadn't any problem recognizing the three persons who were sitting at his table.

His heart started racing and the former waiter frantically check other articles from different sources. There were many links and many sources that all related the same information.

"HOLY SHIT! O-Okay! I believe you about the Garrison stuff! But that doesn't actually mean you went to space!" he tried, his voice sounding like a squeak. "You could have deserted or something."

Lance raised an eyebrow.

"What could I do to prove you we're telling the truth?"

"We should bring him to Lotor." Pidge offered with a snort, which brought her an angry glare from Lance.

"Um… The Castle of Lions is on the background of our photos, but…" Hunk stammered, a bit queasy. He wasn't sure that telling all this information to a civilian human was a good idea. "And I don't think Allura or Coran would convince him."

"You don't trust me?" Lance asked, staring into Gabriel's dark brown eyes.

"I mean, I've known you for only two days, handsome," the other man smiled sheepishly.

Hunk rolled his eyes with a slight smile and suddenly a light lit in his head. He stared at Gabriel, then at his best friend, blinking a few times in realisation… They had only known each other for two days?! He almost laughed in relief.

"We have seen things you couldn't even imagine, but you wouldn't believe us if we told you", Hunk pointed out. "And I don't like the idea of having you running around and telling everyone about Voltron and aliens. Sorry, man, it's not against you personally," he added with a shrug.

Lance looked at his friend in awe, he had already forgotten how much of a voice of reason Hunk could be. But he had to agree with him. Even if he liked Gabriel, he couldn't share much with him, and Lance knew the man wouldn't even believe him. After all, if some stranger came up in his life with two friends of them, telling they were from a space travel school and they had disappeared in space for two years and had fought aliens, Lance guessed he wouldn't believe them either. Otherwise it would have been weird, actually.

"Let's change the topic!" Gabriel declared to lift the mood again. He turned to Pidge with a smile. "You said you had some exciting information about this lovely boy?"

She quirked one eyebrow and shot a devilish smile to her friend who paled. "Don't worry, I could write a trilogy if I wanted to." She pretended to think about it a bit. "Has he already told you about his awful beauty masks? He wears them every single night, they make him look like a disgusting used condom."

Lance gasped and slammed his hands on the table in protest.

* * *

"Shouldn't we leave them some time alone?" Hunk whispered to Pidge's ear when they got out of the pub, heading for another place to go.

"I'm not letting them alone," the girl replied in a harsh tone. "This guy isn't gonna ruin it. I won't let it happen, not now."

Her friend looked at her with concern, wondering what she could be talking about. He didn't like her conspirator look, and this was _definitely_ her conspirator look. He felt a chill running down his spine and put a few steps between the little demon and him, making sure he wasn't going to be her next victim.

"Looks like you haven't found a new phone yet", Gabriel noticed, looking at Lance with a crooked smile. "You promised me you were gonna have one, you liar."

"And I will!" Lance genuinely laughed, already forgetting about the presence of his friends behind him.

He was walking very close to the waiter and his fingers brushed Gabriel's. The sharpshooter glanced at the other man from the corner of his eye, a sly smile on his lips, and slipped his hand in Gabriel's.

Behind them, Pidge was seething, and the yellow paladin elbowed her in an attempt to get her attention away from the two lovers, an expression of high disapproval on his face. It was so unusual to see Hunk being so annoyed that he almost frightened the girl. She swallowed and nodded. Hunk didn't have to suffer her exasperation, it wasn't about him. Actually, he didn't even know why she was so mad, but the green paladin couldn't tell him, not now, he would have to wait a bit, and she would have to bear the situation and grin until they were back to Lance's house.

Their steps led them to an arcade and Pidge's train of thoughts stopped immediately while her eyes began to sparkle. She turned to Lance, every ounce of bitterness vanished, and begged her friend with big puppy eyes.

The Cuban let out a laugh and nodded enthusiastically, his hand still in Gabriel's. They entered the building and stopped to admire the unexpected decoration. One half of the room was filled with coin-op machines and the bright neon lights on the wall along with the checkerboard floor gave the place an old but warm atmosphere. Old songs were playing at a low volume, and Lance started to hum lyrics from ABBA songs without even being aware of it, causing a smile on his friends' faces.

The other half of the room was way more modern, which contrasted heavily with the first half, as if there were two different realities in front of the group of friends. There were FPS games with VR headsets in a corner area, circled by low walls covered with pillows, and a camera was facing the screen in order to take pictures of the players in ridiculous positions. The walls were iron grey with plates and bolts that made the place look like a post-apocalyptic building. Some scratches were disposed here and there and there were discreet blood stains painted in hidden areas. Still in the same gloomy side of the room, four circle pods were glowing on the ground, only colour touch in this dark atmosphere. After a short inspection, Gabriel and the paladins discovered the pods were actually dancing floors for Just Dance players.

Lance had let go of his potential boyfriend's hand, much for Pidge's pleasure, and ran from one game to another, screaming with excitement.

"I bet I can kick your ass on Street Fighter!" the girl challenged the ex-blue paladin with a smirk.

"I'd love to see that!" the man dared with the same look.

They both ran to the nearest two-players coin-op and Lance inserted a coin in the slot in a very sensual manner, grinning from ear to ear. Pidge rolled her eyes and looked at the screen with concentration.

Lance was the first to make his choice.

"Chun-Li?" Pidge voiced in surprise, her eyebrows raised high. "You play a girl?"

"Heh, it's always nicer for a guy to play as a female character! They're nice to look at! And Chun-Li is _very_ attractive and she will kick _your_ ass! And look at those legs!"

Behind him, Gabriel frowned ostensibly.

"Well, I guess I shouldn't be surprised", the green paladin agreed with a grin. "Now, my turn to choose…"

The sharpshooter narrowed his eyes and gasped when Pidge eventually made her choice.

"What's with this guy?!"

"F.A.N.G." The girl's grin spread wider. " _Look at those legs_ ", she mimicked in a sarcastic tone.

"He's a fucking grasshopper!" her opponent whined like a child.

Pidge snickered and Hunk took a step back, almost afraid. He looked at the screen and observed the fight between the two characters. Lance was pretty skilled with playing Chun-Li, as she was always his first choice. He knew some of her moves and combos and was at ease with moving her on the 2D area. On the other hand, Pidge had good reflexes and a huge amount of luck. She kept pressing the touches randomly, being absolutely unpredictable, and even managed to make combo-moves. When she figured out which button enabled the character to guard and dodge, the green paladin was almost invincible.

Lance's voice raised as his HP gauge was getting lower and lower, and when Pidge delivered her fatal blow, the ex-blue paladin couldn't help but shout in anger and frustration. "I DEMAND REVENGE!"

"You will lose all your money. I'd rather have you directly giving it to me", Pidge blustered.

"YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW TO PLAY THIS CHARACTER!"

"But I won". The green paladin's smile grew wider as she replied. "A new game won't change the outcome."

"Can I give it a try, guys?" Hunk manifested himself with an innocent air.

His friends turned to him, baffled, but Pidge took a step back to give the yellow paladin access to the machine, one brow raised. Yellow's pilot nodded with a slight smile and inserted a coin before indicating Lance to choose first. Unsurprisingly, the Cuban chose Chun-Li again.

Hunk smirked.

"I like this guy", he said whilst selecting Ryu. "Let's keep with the old generation."

"Have you ever played this game?" Lance asked, eyes focused on the screen.

"Only twice or thrice", Hunk answered with a shrug, half-smiling and trying to hide it.

His fingers flew on the console's big buttons while his other hand was moving the joystick, and in only three moves the paladin managed to knock Chun-Li out. Hunk allowed himself a proud smile and turned to Lance who was still staring at the screen, his jaw dropped. The Cuban slowly glanced at his friend and he closed his mouth. His gaze stained with determination.

"You monster." Lance murmured, narrowing his eyes distrustfully.

"It was only luck", Hunk shrugged again. "Wanna try again?"

"I'll defeat you and you'll regret the day you were born," Blue's pilot fulminated. He inserted another coin, this time with rage, and chose Chun-Li again. Hunk's choice remained still, and once more he defeated Lance in only a few moves.

"HOW DID YOU DO THAT?" Lance yelled, earning some weird glares from the director of the establishment.

"My turn." Pidge cut him, putting her glasses back up on her nose.

She was so serious that she gave chills to Lance. He let her take his place without a word and folded his arms in resignation, nearly sulking. The girl shot him a quick look, smiling as she thought he reminded her of someone else, and zeroed in on the screen. She took a few seconds to memorize the buttons and analyse Hunk's moves before she inserted one coin into the machine. She selected F.A.N.G again.

The fight was tight and Pidge managed to dodge some of Hunk's blows. She figured out some of the combos and with a bit of practice she would surely be able to compete with his skills. She struck a few hits before her character finally got knocked out by Hunk's and she raised her hands up in the air in defeat.

"You got me", she admitted with a sigh. "You're better than both of us at this game."

Hunk smiled genuinely at the compliment.

"I know a game at which I can beat you", Lance grumbled, his arms still crossed on his chest. He lifted his chin with a challenging and mischievous smirk. "Time to show you who's the best sharpshooter."

Pidge rolled her eyes. "Don't forget Hunk used a gun too," she reminded him with a crooked smile.

"I know!" The ex-blue paladin yelled with a grin, one hand on his hips.

When looking closely, Gabriel found that something looked a bit off with this smile, as if it was forced. He shot a glance to Pidge and Hunk who didn't seem to notice anything weird about their friend, and Gabriel shrugged. After all, he didn't know Lance as much as the other two did, if there were something strange they would have seen.

The four of them moved to the modern side of the room, and Lance and Pidge snapped up two headsets and gun-shaped controllers.

"What's this game?" Gabriel asked, and the two competitors shrugged with a snort.

"Tell me this isn't something scary, tell me this isn't something scary," Hunk kept on chanting, already reluctant to put the thing on his head.

"Would you prefer it to be a unicorn hunting game?" Pidge scoffed. "Boom, no more unicorns. That's how they got extinct."

"I don't want to live a cursed life", Hunk whined, shaking his head from left to right. "No unicorn hunting. I'd rather hunt aliens."

"No aliens here, but definitely zombies!" Lance exclaimed cheerfully.

"Guys, I don't want to play this game…" the yellow paladin whined. "I'm sure I'm gonna suffer motion sickness and there will be blood and I don't want to throw up in Virtual Reality."

"It won't be any different from you throwing up in _Blue_!" the sharpshooter snickered with a cringe of disgust.

Gabriel frowned, slowly considering the idea of them being space pilots. He couldn't believe it, but he had to admit that the amount of space-related private jokes and nonsenses was high between the three of them. How could someone throw up in blue? What was Lance talking about? Had Gabriel made the right decision when he decided to flirt with this guy?

He stared at the three friends and put his headset on. At least, he knew how to wield a gun and how to shoot. He had already practised and was pretty good at it, but his friends didn't need to know that yet. A half-smile spread on his lips and he took aim at the enemies appearing in front of him on the screen. VR technology was pretty impressive, and Gabriel even startled when he heard a door slamming behind him in the game. He turned round only to find a zombie ten centimetres away from his face, too close for him to shoot. Fortunately, VR didn't come with 4D technology, and they were spared the decomposition smell that would come with the walking corpses.

The zombie came at him with her wobbly teeth and Gabriel yelped, almost dropping his weapon. He heard a bang and suddenly the woman fell dead – well, _deader_ than before. The waiter took a step aside to avoid the corpse to fall on him, a disgusted twist of lips on his face.

He looked at the body one last time and shivered when the sensation of the zombie just a few centimetres away from him came back. The shot must have been very precise to touch only the zombie, as could witness the smoking hole that went through the woman's head. Gabriel raised one eyebrow, taking in this information.

"You should be more careful, I don't want a digital dead woman to ruin that lovely face of yours," Lance's voice echoed both in the headphones and on his right in the arcade room.

Gabriel laughed slightly and his hand found its way to the other man's shoulder. He squeezed it lightly, feeling Lance's body contracting and then giving in to the touch without anyone else being able to notice.

"No time for romance, it is war!" the sharpshooter laughed too.

"Hey, isn't romance what makes soldiers cling to life?"

Lance let out another brief laugh. He had never thought about it this way, and he must admit the waiter had a point, there… Lance tried to glance at him from the corner of his eyes – too bad the headset didn't allow him to -, in a desperate need of contact. He thought about leaving the arcade and spending some time alone with Gabriel – it was a date, after all -, but couldn't bring himself to leave Pidge and Hunk on their own.

He focused back on the game and went to explore a new area. He took three seconds to steady his breathing before entering a new room, imagining the weight of his bayard in his hands. When he went past the door, it was dark, and the young man could hear a low growl coming from the back of the room.

"Lance! On your left!" Pidge warned him, eyes on the map, but it was a little too late.

The ex-blue paladin turned in a hurry, his gun ready to fire. "What the-"

"Lance, what's the matter? Lance?" Hunk's voice asked worriedly, as if they were back on a Galra ship and not only playing a game.

In retrospect, maybe playing a post-apocalyptic simulator wasn't the best idea for young people who had been involved in a war only weeks earlier.

"Move!" Lance yelled, his voice higher than usual. His heart was racing when he shot and nearly missed his target. "What kind of a game is that?!"

Gabriel quickly put his headset off and looked at Lance, who was shaking. Hunk was the fastest to get to him. He freed his friend from all VR technologies and took him in a big hug.

"I-It was a child. It was a fucking child," Lance spluttered.

"It's just a game, Lance, we're back, don't worry. Everyone is fine," the yellow paladin reassured him without letting go of him.

Pidge took his hand as slowly as she could, tears in the corners of her eyes. "It's okay, Lance. You're home, there are no more Galra around here."

"I-I'm sorry," Gabriel stammered as if it was going to help. "I didn't mean to scare you…"

Maybe if the waiter hadn't come into the room Lance would have shot the zombie without realising it was a child. With Gabriel's character being in danger, the sharpshooter had no other choice but to fire, and, way too immersed in the game, he was now having a serious shock.

Pidge glared a deadly look at the waiter, so full of hatred that the man took a step back, his hands up in front of him in a defensive stance.

"What about we give up this game, huh?" Gabriel offered with an audible gulp.

Lance sucked in deep breaths, trying to relax, and he nodded fervently. He dragged his shaking body to a wall before he realised it was actually Hunk, and leant against him with a grateful gaze. After a few minutes, Lance was already feeling better and he jumped on his feet, sporting a bright smile.

"Okay guys, let's forget this! I can see something that will make you _move_!"

"Oh no…" Hunk pretended to wail, repressing a smile.

"Oh _yes_ , buddy!" The ex-blue paladin extended one of his hands to Gabriel, the other on his heart. "Would you do me the honour of dancing with me, honey?"

The other man took his hand in a very theatrical move, emphasizing his body language. "With great pleasure!"

"I think Lance met his match," Hunk joked genuinely in a whisper, earning a glare from Pidge.

The green paladin crossed her arms across her chest. She kept her gaze on Gabriel while Lance and he were dancing to Timber. Wavy strands of his long hair were flying around him with each move and his chocolate gaze was locked on Lance, a bright smile that he was surely not aware of on his face. Pidge narrowed her eyes, still focused on the stranger. Dark hair, definitely too long for the aesthetic; dark but soft eyes, and a soft genuine smile… Gabriel reminded her of someone else, and she found herself smiling scarily.

Lance was dancing as the girl, rocking the moves like no one else could, and he was enjoying himself so much, laughing whenever he faced Gabriel.

"I'll be the one you won't forget", the sharpshooter sang with the song, winking as he took the waiter's hand in his.

A light blush appeared on Gabriel's cheeks and he winked back, radiant. Pidge huffed, even she had to admit this guy was extremely attractive.

When the song ended, Gabriel jumped on Lance's back, laughing out loud. Still in this position, he chose the next song. He was going to confirm when an idea hit him, and he turned to Pidge and Hunk.

"Wanna join?"

"I wouldn't like to bother you," Pidge snorted with a smirk which was only half friendly.

"C'mon, guys! Are you scared of losing?" Lance mocked.

The two other paladins exchanged a look and nodded to themselves. "Make room for the best pair of this room!" Pidge declared, a burning fire in her eyes.

Gabriel cheered them with a thumb up, and Lance selected the girl again, as did Hunk, who thought it would be funnier if Pidge was the guy. The four of them sang along while dancing, and it was obviously easier for Gabriel and Lance to keep up with the two activities.

 _" "Oh don't you dare look back, just keep your eyes on me."_

 _I said "You're holding back."_

 _She said "Shut up and dance with me!"_

 _This woman is my destiny!_

 _She said "Ooh Ooh ooh,_

 _Shut up and dance with me!" "_

The final move was made for a couple and the man had to dip the woman. Pidge did her best to support him, but Hunk ended up falling flat on the floor, laughing loudly. They were laughing with tears in their eyes when they realised they hadn't heard their two friends for a while. The girl glanced over her shoulder, only to find the two of them kissing, seemingly unaware of the world existing around them. Lance had his fist clenched on Gabriel's collar, pulling him closer, and his other hand was firmly gripped to the waiter's belt. Still in dip pose, Gabriel was using all his muscles to maintain the position without falling.

Hunk chuckled joyfully, and Pidge cleared her throat dryly.

"Get a room," she grunted in the same tone, no longer amused.

Finally, the two lovers seemed to need some oxygen to breathe and realised they weren't all alone on a desert planet. They looked around, a bit surprised, and their cheeks got redder than they were before.

Hunk's phone rang in his pocket, and he took it out to look at the screen. Gabriel noticed his lock screen, which was a photo of a humanoid creature standing in front of a huge metallic yellow cat. The creature looked very soft and friendly, almost shy, and the waiter wondered if it was a costume or an actual alien. All of his certitudes were slowly cracking as he hung with Pidge, Hunk and Lance. This curious guy had truly changed the way Gabriel saw the universe, and he had only known him for two days.

Leo: 'Are they finished? I want to go home, Mamá promised to bake waffles tonight. Tell Lance I'll kill him if he makes us late!'

"Lance, I think your brother wants to go home." Hunk announced, looking up from his screen.

"What?! How come you've got his number?!" Blue's pilot exclaimed with a frown.

"He needed someone he could contact. Your phone is dead, remember?" Pidge reminded him, bitter.

"Look, I don't want to pressure you, Lance, but there are waffles hanging in the balance," Hunk spoke again, staring at his friends with puppy eyes which could rival Lilí's.

Blue's pilot huffed and nodded, gloomy. He glanced at Gabriel – dare he already call him his boyfriend? – and cracked a sad smile.

"Um… Guys…" Lance began, embarrassed.

"Sure." Hunk nodded, already dragging their littlest friend in the opposite direction. "We'll join Leo, don't be too long, please!"

When they disappeared at the corner of the street, the sharpshooter let out a big sigh. He seriously owed Hunk one, and he would need some serious explanations from Pidge. She was being even moodier than Keith. Lance couldn't believe she was jealous, or something else was obviously upsetting her and he needed to know what if he didn't want to go insane.

"So… Do I deserve another date?" Gabriel asked mischievously.

Lance's gaze lingered on the delicate features of the waiter's face, his thinly shaped lips, his dark eyes which were always sparkling with playfulness, the few stray strands of hair which fell peacefully around his face, escaped from his ponytail… In every angle, Gabriel was very pleasant to look at.

"Of course," the ex-spaceship pilot accepted. His voice was low and slow, almost sleepy, as if he had just woken up and still needed to adjust to reality. "I think Hunk will help me fix my phone if he can, so I'll send you a message as soon as possible," he continued with a polite smile which seemed a bit off in Gabriel's opinion.

"Don't you want to set a date?" Gabriel frowned, a hint of sadness in his voice. "Are you okay? You look like someone who's going to flee or cry, or both. Have I done something wrong?"

Lance must admit he had a point, he was feeling extremely bad without even knowing why. He felt like he had to flee away from this pretty face, even if this single thought was painful to him.

"I guess the day was long," Lance affected with a neglectful wave of the hand. "I was really happy to spend the afternoon with you," he assured, taking Gabriel's hand in his and raising it to his lips to give a gentle kiss to his palm.

"You should go, Lance, your friends will be waiting for you."

The Cuban smiled again, the same odd unhappy smile that made Gabriel's stomach twist. Lance nodded briefly. He kissed Gabriel on the lips, chastely, and left with a wave of hand, without adding a single word.

The waiter waved back with a bright, radiant smile that faded away as soon as Lance turned at the corner of the street, and Gabriel wondered if he would have the opportunity to meet him again…

* * *

Lance climbed in the car and let his head rest against the back of the seat, exhausted. The silence being heavy, he glanced at his brother, one brow raised interrogatively.

"How was your date?"

"I don't know, how did they tell you it was?" Lance replied, indicating Hunk and Pidge with his chin.

Leo raised his brows, surprised by the dry tone, one of his hands on the wheel and the other held defensively before him, no longer joking.

"Wow, tell me what happened."

The sharpshooter let out a long sigh and rested his head against the seat again, eyes closed as he tried to avoid the gazes he felt on him.

"I don't know, I freaked out, I screwed up again."

"What? Did you tell him to fuck off?" Pidge voiced, genuinely curious and almost relieved.

She earned a glare from Lance and shrugged, unimpressed.

"I don't want to talk about it," the ex-paladin ended the conversation.

He remained silent until the end of the journey, looking sadder and sadder as the minutes passed. Hunk squeezed his shoulder gently and let him rest for a bit. As soon as Leo parked the car, Lance jumped out and walked straight to his room, leaving his two friends in the doorway.

They exchanged a worried look. They had never seen Lance acting so depressed, so out of character. Where was his playful attitude? What about his nonchalant smile? His self-confidence?

As promised, Aleja McClain made them a generous amount of waffles, served with whipped cream, melted chocolate, sugar, jam and whatever they wanted. It was worth a celebration banquet, and when the family and the two guests had finished eating, they were so full they didn't move for a whole hour. The sky was now dark and full of stars, and Lance was feeling a bit better, he offered his two friends a walk on the beach, which they accepted enthusiastically.

The wind was light and just fresh enough to be enjoyable, and the sand was irradiating a sweet warmth that the three paladins appreciated greatly. The sound of the ocean waves was like a lullaby which bathed the peaceful atmosphere.

Lance was holding his shoes in his hand, his trousers rolled up to his knees so that he could walk in the water. Pidge and Hunk were walking beside him, quiet, waiting for him to speak first, which he did after some minutes.

"How long do you think you'll be able to stay here?" the ex-blue paladin asked around, eyes locked on his own feet.

Hunk put his arm around Lance's shoulders, a huge grin on his face. "How long do you need us to stay here?" He felt his friend shake under him, laughing. "We can stay for a couple of weeks if it doesn't bother you. Then I'll try to find a way to go back to the Balmera," the yellow paladin explained, blushing heavily under the moonlight.

"Want to join Shaaaay~?" Lance teased him with a huge shit-eating grin.

"Yes, I do." Hunk agreed with a shrug, his smile growing even bigger. It was the purest smile Lance had ever seen, and he found himself wondering if someone would ever have this effect on him.

Gabriel was a nice guy, he was very attractive –and a very talented kisser -, but the sharpshooter couldn't help but have a weird feeling whenever he looked at him, something between nostalgia and happiness. It wasn't truly a bad impression, more of a strange sensation that made Lance feel slightly uncomfortable, as if he was incomplete.

"Um, Lance? What happened when we left you alone with Gabriel earlier?" Pidge asked.

The man looked at her, surprised. He had forgotten how fast she could be. Sometimes it was as if she could read minds.

"I don't know, I felt weird… Speaking of weird, what was that, guys?" The ex-paladin frowned deeply and turned to Hunk. "You were acting so distant, and you, Pidge, were just acting like a jerk."

Nice save, Lance, you're the best at changing topics.

"I thought you were hiding your new boyfriend from me," Hunk admitted sheepishly, scratching his cheek in embarrassment. "I was hurt, sorry."

"Hey, buddy, you know you'd be the first I'd tell!" the ex-blue paladin reassured him immediately, gently nudging him.

Pidge was staring at Lance, waiting for her turn to explain her point. When her friends finally looked at her, her answer wasn't exactly what they were expecting. "I hate him," she stated. As simple as that.

Lance's eyes widened and his jaw dropped.

"What?! But you acted all friendly with him! You've spent the day –you've spent _my date_ \- telling him about every single one of my habits and flaws!" the guy yelled, unbelieving what he was hearing.

"Well, I kind of hoped he was going to flee or something," Pidge snickered, her glasses reflecting the moon and the ocean.

"Pidge! I thought you were my friend!"

"I am your friend—" She paused as if she was going to add something but came around. "That's the whole point."

"Aw, man… You're giving me a headache," Lance laughed, not resentful. After all, Pidge could like or dislike whoever she wanted, and she wasn't the most social of the crew. Lance was sure she was a close second asocial, just behind Keith, except Keith was just awkward around people while Pidge was simply better at interacting with robots.

Lance suddenly stopped and dropped onto the wet sand, his clothes already being soaked by salted water. He splashed his friends and they protested a bit before joining him on the ground.

They stood there for what seemed like an eternity, just the three of them enjoying their time together, quiet, close, their eyes locked on the stars they used to visit only a few weeks ago. Lance's gaze wandered from one constellation to another, looking for something, almost as if he was hoping to catch the glimpse of a light in the night sky which would give away the position of what he was seeking – even if he didn't know himself what he was looking for.

"Guys… Do you think they're alright?..." Lance whispered, his eyes reflecting the many stars he was lost in.

Pidge brought her knees closer to her chest, circling them with her arms, her gaze not letting go of the stars shining upon them. She put her head against Lance's shoulder and Hunk put an arm around both of them.

"They obviously are. We're the defenders of the universe, remember?" Pidge laughed slightly, her movements making all of them shake.

* * *

Far away from Earth, in the middle of a deserted galaxy, a huge ship was driven away without anything attach, one side completely destroyed, debris floating around in the vastness of the void. There was no longer any light coming from this castle-shaped craft. No living being was to be found there, only silence remained. And, in the darkest room of the spaceship, five giant robot lions were left without pilots.


	4. Setting our sights on the stars

**Chapter 4 – Setting our sights on the stars**

"Woah! Is it an ancient computer that I see on your desk?!" Pidge exclaimed, her eyes sparkling as if she were looking at the most beautiful thing in the world.

"Yeah, but it crashed down," Lance admitted with a shrug, earning a glare from his friend who caressed the big squared screen as if it was a fragile puppy that Lance had brutalized. The man rolled his eyes and watched as Hunk entered the room and sat on the floor near the bed, Lance's phone in his hands, carrying it like a baby animal in distress.

"You can sit on the bed, you know," the ex-blue paladin said with a soft, amused smile.

"We don't know what you do when you're in your bed," the girl with glasses snickered, sitting backwards on the desk chair and rolling across the room.

"I don't know what you're talking about," the man immediately cut her, pretending to be offended and disgusted.

His voice must not have sounded convincing enough, because Hunk cut the conversation with a nervous laugh. "The floor is good enough." He quickly looked back at the device and took a screwdriver out of his pocket, trying to forget what he had just heard.

"Hunk, can I borrow your tools? I feel like a bit of improvement wouldn't hurt this poor boy," the girl asked, pointing at the computer behind her, when the yellow paladin had exposed all his tools in a perfect line in front of him.

"Sure!"

Lance looked at them, then at the photos on his wall. It was awkward to have them with him, it still seemed so surreal to him, and he happened to miss Pidge and Hunk while they were in the same room as him. Although, he didn't feel like anything had changed between them –or at least he hoped so.

"Lance, stop thinking so much, you're going to have a headache!" Pidge teased him with a smirk, hanging upside down on the chair to reach the computer tower.

Her voice brought him back to reality and he shook his head. His bedroom was now a big mess – well, to be fair it was just slightly messier than it usually was -, and the floor was covered in electronic pieces, tools, plastic and metallic threads, and micro screws he was sure to walk on when he'd have to climb into bed later. Moving in there was now more dangerous than a LEGO minefield.

"What have you planned to do, now?" Hunk asked the other two, eyes locked on the phone he was still tinkering in. "I mean, I hate to say this but to go back to the Galaxy Garrison would be boring and I don't picture myself as a waiter or anything – no offense to Gabriel, though," he added, glancing at Lance.

The latter was quick to reply, more genuine than he had ever been. "You'd make the best cook ever. And I'd love to have my best friend owning a restaurant. Wait… You wouldn't make me pay for the meal, right?... Hunk?!"

"No! You're my friend…"

"You would pay double." Pidge finished with an evil smirk.

"But seriously, I mean it, you should become a cook or something," Lance spoke again, looking straight into Hunk's eyes. "What about you, Pidge? Any idea?"

"I'm not sure," the girl faltered with a shrug, tapping her chin in a thoughtful manner and frowning in concentration. "I'm interested in nanotechnologies, but I feel like it would be boring. I mean, after Voltron, everything feels boring, right? Game development could be entertaining, though…"

Lance tilted his head, narrowing his eyes in incomprehension. "Why don't you travel with Coran? He knows so many things about alien technologies, and back there you looked like you could spend your life studying them, like a space-archaeologist specialized in technologies?"

Hunk raised his brows and observed Pidge, whose eyes widened so much they suddenly seemed to fill her whole face.

"That's… the best idea ever… I would never have thought of that!" she screamed, jumping from the chair to Lance's arms. "I was focused on living on Earth, but you're so right! Thank you so much, Lance! I owe you one!"

The green paladin was almost weeping with joy, her arms around her friend's neck and her face buried in his shirt.

"Woah, there!" Lance exclaimed, laughing and wrapping his arms around her back. "Be sure to send us photos!"

The atmosphere was so light that the three of them felt like they could laugh at the tiniest, lamest joke.

"So, that leaves you, Lance." Hunk noticed with a warm smile while Pidge was slowly going back to the computer.

"No idea… But I guess you'll need a waiter in your new establishment," the sharpshooter laughed.

"Is there anything that you love, other than space travelling and shooting the Galra?" Pidge asked, turning her chin toward the ex-blue paladin to show him she was listening, her eyes still locked on the computer she was carefully dissecting.

"I don't know, really… Maybe something related to water, then," he shrugged. "But I don't picture myself in school anymore."

Lance let out a brief sigh and quickly took his carefree attitude back. He glanced at Pidge, who didn't seem to have noticed his despondent tone, and then at Hunk who was staring at him, seemingly worried. The yellow paladin waited for his friend to explain but after a few minutes he knew he wouldn't get any answer. Hunk gave Lance a slight smile, letting him know that he would be there for him, and after a few minutes, a victorious shout escaped his lips.

"It works!" Hunk yelled, holding the phone up in the air like a precious treasure.

Pidge hummed The Legend of Zelda's chest opening sound and then she screamed as loud as her friend, turning on the computer which now made a cute purring. "I made it! It's aliiive!"

"I'm scared!" Lance shouted too, bursting out laughing. He gazed at his phone, eyes sparkling with hope, and took it as carefully as he would have done with a new-born. The demon turned on in his hands and it vibrated for several minutes after Lance had unlocked it and entered his code.

"I didn't know I was so popular," he laughed, but his smile fell when he looked at some embarrassing messages he had received.

Buddy: 'Um, buddy. This was with my stuffs, and I don't think it's mine…' to which was attached a picture showing boxer shorts on which it was written "Don't need a permit for this gun".

Lance glanced at Hunk and swallowed, his face already red. He scrolled through the other many messages he had received, feeling his cheeks burn more and more.

Gremlin: 'Is this what I think it is? TELL ME IT IS! read Pidge's message, following a picture of a dark blue shark-shaped piece of fabric.'

The sharpshooter eyed his little friend, his heart racing in his chest, and shivered while scrolling again.

Gremlin: 'A blessed image from Shiro!' . The attached picture was a bit blurred, but Lance would have recognized this mullet anywhere in the whole universe, even in the middle of a mullet-heads crowd. His gaze lingered on the picture several seconds too long, printing Keith's flushed angry face and his braided strands of hair into Lance's mind.

He shook his head, earning curious looks from his two friends who had been observing the scene in silence from the beginning, and carried on.

Princess: 'We have found something that might belong to you in your room, it's a notebook. There are dates and things written under them, Keith told us that it was called a "diary" and that it was common on Earth for little girls? I think this was a joke, because he laughed after that… Do you want us to keep it somewhere until you get it back?'

"I'm going to kill him…" Lance swore between his teeth, already imagining himself making Keith regret his existence.

"Kill who?" Pidge innocently inquired, but her friend didn't bother to answer. She watched him freeze slowly, his hand tightening its grip on the phone. "Lance, is everything all right?" she asked again, frowning.

When Blue's pilot didn't answer, both his friends leant closer to him to shoot a look at his screen.

Annoying Mullet: 'Hey, Lance. You okay?'

Annoying Mullet: 'Lance, I need to be sure you're fine. Please, answer me.'

* * *

The crowded place was definitely making Keith feel uncomfortable. Allura and Shiro were walking before him, so close that their arms almost touched, and the red paladin rolled his eyes at this sight. The princess and the black paladin weren't going out yet, but it was so obvious to everyone that they loved each other that it was a pain to be around them every _dobosh_ of the day and night.

Keith gritted his teeth and forced the pace, carefully avoiding to touch any of the many aliens around them. They were of many species, and without realising it, Keith was quickly glancing at each one of them, subconsciously trying to catch a glimpse of hair, of skin that would seem oddly familiar to the half-Galra orphan. They had been walking in the space harbour for _vargas_ , now, and it was getting more boring and less entertaining with each _tick_.

Keith took a quick look at his phone again, which remained painfully silent, and he ragingly stuffed it back into his pocket. He was so stupid! Why would Lance have replied, anyway?!

Red's pilot stopped and sucked in a deep breath, eyes shut and his jaw closed so tight that he was sure his teeth would be damaged by the end of the day if he didn't relieve the pressure. When he opened his eyelids again, Allura and Shiro had disappeared from his eyesight, and Keith swore under his breath, turning round to look for his friends. He had decided to go back to the Castle when silver hair caught his attention. Allura was laughing, one hand politely covering her mouth and her cheeks pink, while Shiro was gesturing to something behind the shop window. The red paladin watched as they entered the shop. Above the door was a big panel on which it was written "Le Nid de Pie", and Keith frowned at the words, not recognizing them although they used the roman alphabet. And why would a space shop have a name written in a human language? Were the aliens really this interested in humans? Did they abduct them, as they did in movies?

Shiro came out of the shop, smiling, and beside him Allura had her hand resting gently on his arm. On his robotic Galra arm.

Of course, aliens abducted humans, Keith thought. And Shiro surely hadn't been the only one, hence the human name of the shop.

Suddenly, the red paladin felt the urge to go back to the Castle and fly away from the space harbour, a cold shiver running down his spine. He quickly joined his two friends, trying to ignore their proximity and the ache that it caused in his chest, and looked closely at Allura's neck. She was wearing a thin chain on which was hanging a silver ring. In the centre of the ring was a round bead full of lavender liquid, as thick as lava yet as fluid as oil and as translucent as water. In the middle of the lavender drop, a pearl white light was pulsing rhythmically. Dum-dum, dum-dum. The rhythm reminded Keith of something. _Dum-dum, dum-dum_ … The truth came to his mind as a jolt and he bit his tongue a bit too violently: in the glass drop pulsed a light which was following a heartbeat pace.

"What is this?" the red paladin asked, pointing at the jewel with an interrogative look on his face.

"Oh, this?" Allura feigned ignorance although she was blushing heavily. "We call this a Rathe Spular, it's made from cosmic dust and it rotates depending on… a specific magnetism… causing the sparkles you can see."

Keith narrowed his eyes at her hesitation and noticed how Shiro discreetly shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

"What specific magnetism, exactly?" the younger paladin asked again, already suspecting the answer.

"The rotation is based on a heartbeat."

Shiro looked away and Allura's face heated up even more. They didn't need to say more, Keith had guessed where it led them. The way back to the ship was filled with an awkward silence. Keith didn't know what to say – he didn't even know what he was feeling anymore, as if his emotions had shut down. Walking before him again, Allura and Shiro were acting strangely, gravitating around each other without touching, as if a physics force was both attracting and repelling them at the same time, as if the universe wanted them to be together when they didn't allow themselves to.

Soon, they arrived at the anchor point of the ship, or at least at the place where it was supposed to be. The three of them froze, and they turned round to check if they had taken the right path. A loud mooing came from the edge of the bridge and Keith was running before he had even realised what was happening.

"This is our cow! Step back or I'll make you-" His voice shut down when he saw Coran lying on the floor in the middle of a pool of blood which was soaking through his Altean clothes. "Coran?! Coran, what happened?!" Keith yelled, walking around the older man without daring to approach him. A storm of white curls passed in front of the paladin and Allura kneeled in the red puddle, tears in the corners of her eyes.

"Don't worry, Coran, we're here. Just rest," she tried to reassure him, her hands glowing blue as she scanned his injured body. She let out a huge sigh of relief when the inspection was over, and looked at her friend, tears glowing in her beautiful eyes. He was out of danger, seemingly exhausted, and he had a stab wound going through his side, but fortunately no organ was damaged.

"I'm sorry, princess," the ginger haired man croaked with difficulty. "It was my duty to protect the Castle, and I failed… again. Your father…"

"He would be proud of you, Coran," she assured him, her hands shaking on his arm. "Now be quiet, we'll take it from here. Thank you so much for all that you do. Now, I ask you not to worry about anything anymore, can you do this for me?"

The Altean man nodded and closed his eyes in pain, sliding his right hand on his body so that it covered part of his wound.

Meanwhile, Keith was gritting his teeth, watching a man who had Kaltenecker's leash in hand. The alien guy looked like an earthling, save for the big rat tail that was waving slowly on the floor behind him.

"Get your hands off our cow, I won't say it again," the red paladin threatened the guy between his teeth. When the alien didn't move, Keith reached for his bayard and the sword took its place into his palm, reassuring him by its familiar weight.

"W-Where were you keeping this?!" the thief stammered, staring at Keith's weapon and asking the only logical question. He dropped the rope when the paladin shot him a merciless glare and ran away in the opposite direction, almost tripping on his own feet and tail.

Keith let out a breath he didn't know he was holding and grabbed the leash, absentmindedly petting the cow's neck. On Kaltenecker's back were standing the mice, shaking and huddling together in an attempt to reassure themselves.

"We have to find a safe place to rest, and Coran requires some medical cares", Allura stated, holding the man in her arms, standing strong and determined. Shiro was staring at her, an odd kind of mixed fascination and astonishment painted on his face.

"Let me carry him", the black paladin offered but Allura refused immediately. He sighed and Keith pulled lightly on Kaltenecker's leash, demanding the cow to follow them.

They wandered off in the streets, earning weird glares from the bystanders, and Keith pictured himself punching them all, too much stress and tension flowing through his veins. He looked down, thinking about their situation while he walked.

First, Coran was hurt, and he needed cares. Fortunately, Allura had said he would be fine and only had been stabbed in the side, the man had already known more serious wounds. Second, the Castle had disappeared, and Coran was the only one to know what had happened. Considering they were all out of the ship and stuck in the space harbour, the Castle of Lions had most likely been stolen. Third… _quiznak_!

"We really need to get the Castle back," the red paladin whispered in a hurry, an alarmed look on his face. "The Lions are still in there!"

Some people were staring at them, and Keith quickly shut up, biting his tongue out of frustration. He swallowed audibly and forced his pace. All he wanted was to find a place where they could be alone and sort this whole situation out.

It turned out that finding a room for four people to sleep, plus a cow and four mice wasn't as easy as it seemed to be, even for the Princess of Altea and all the money and fame she carried with her. Discouragement was starting to get through them when Allura decided to try one last time. She headed to an old-looking motel, the kind of places where blood stained carpets was a common thing and where the sleeping man she was carrying in her arms wouldn't bring them too much attention. Shiro politely held the door for them to enter, followed by Keith and the animals he was still leading, a distrustful look on his face.

"We would need a room for the night, the biggest room you have would be the best option, but we can do with whatever you can offer," the princess begged after having introduced herself in a very Daenerys-ish way.

"I'm sorry, ma'am, but there's no room left," the receptionist said, not even pretending to care a bit and already looking back to his register. The male alien was tall and his greasy skin which stained everything with a thin film of glossy mucus was partially covered with green sandy scales. Tentacles were moving in his back, like tiny featherless and boneless wings, and on top of his head was a tuft of bright yellow bird down. Just looking at him could have made people blind, or at best they went with an epileptic seizure.

The princess took a deep breath and stepped to Shiro, eyelids closed as if she was struggling to keep her calm facade.

"Can you hold Coran for me, please?" she asked, her voice sounding like a threatening storm.

The paladin nodded and quickly obeyed. He helped the Altean man who had just woken up to stand up, putting an arm around his waist and offering Coran a grip around his shoulders. Despite the ginger haired man being almost as tall as him, Shiro had no difficulty supporting him: he was such a featherweight in spite of his muscular body.

Keith gulped as Allura turned to the receptionist and all the men started when she slammed her hands on the desk. She looked straight into the alien's eyes, threatening, and the paladins could have sworn she was suddenly a few centimetres taller and slightly bulkier.

"Listen, I am one of the last Altean alive, princess of my lost planet, and my most precious friend has been injured and needs some rest. I am actually very tired and irascible, and the two men behind me are powerful warriors who defeated the Galra Empire. Thus, I'm asking you one last time: find a room for us to rest, or my wrath will make you regret being born."

Shiro and Keith exchanged a worried look, almost afraid by the princess' serious and weary tone, and the black paladin tightening his grip on Coran who was snoring on his shoulder, ready to go if things got risky.

"I have no room for any princess or so-called soldiers," the disgustingly colourful creature declared with a shrug, half a smirk spreading smugly on his face.

Kaltenecker mooed and in the time of one blink, the man was knocked out on the floor and Allura was outside, walking to the stairs, keys jangling happily in her clenched fist.

Shiro shivered discreetly and gestured to Keith to follow their princess, dragging Coran with him and pressing his palm onto the Altean's wound to avoid it to reopen and bleed again.

Awakened by the metallic noise of the key, Coran ordered Shiro to release him. He was cringing at every step, and going upstairs was a painful trial for him but he insisted on doing it by himself, as the proud Altean he was. The cold wind was keeping him awake and alert, but it couldn't take his guilt feeling away from him.

Coran trudged to the room, eventually supported again by Shiro who was carefully keeping a slow pace, and sat down on the nearest mattress, leaning against the head of the bed. A sigh of relief escaped his lips and the ginger haired man closed his eyelids.

The princess was pacing up and down, her fingers nervously tapping against her thigh in a rhythm of her own. Kaltenecker had started to chew the sheets of one of the beds when Allura let out a stressed growl.

"Coran, could you tell us what happened, please?" she asked him kindly, kneeling near him and taking one of his hands into hers.

His soft blue eyes focused on her and sadness slowly consumed them whole.

"A band of pirates entered the ship. They had swords and I tried to keep them from getting into the Castle, but there were too many of them. Some of their friends destroyed part of the ship while I was busy fighting the first ones, and they finally ejected me out of the Castle of Lions, with Kaltenecker and the mice… I'm sorry, princess…"

"All that matters is that you're alive, Coran," Allura reassured him with sincerity. "We'll take the Castle back, but first we need you to be in the best shape. The Castle can wait."

Her smile was pure and genuine, and warm tears rolled down the man's cheeks.

"Wait, there's something I don't get, here," Keith said with a frown. "Isn't the pilot of the Castle of Lions supposed to be Altean?"

There was an awkward silence and Shiro spoke up, glancing quickly at his own arm.

"Is there a way they could have got some Altean technologies? Did your people use to make prosthetics?"

"We heal ourselves in healing pods or with quintessence, we've never used our technologies in a medical purpose," Allura countered, her furrowed brows tracing concerned lines on her forehead.

"I think…" Coran faltered, his look sliding onto Keith. "I think one of them could be like you, paladin. A hybrid, a part Altean offspring…"

* * *

Pidge glanced at Lance again, not able to hide the half-smirk that had been threatening to spread on her lips for hours. The Cuban had barely said a word since the moment he had seen Keith's messages on his phone, completely stunned and flustered. Hunk had tried to make him react, a bit worried, but neither Leo nor himself managed to get the ex-blue paladin to reply.

"Error 404", Pidge snickered, pointing a finger at Lance. "Brain not found."

"What happened?" Leo muttered again, waving his hand in front of his brother and getting absolutely no reaction out of him.

Selena walked into the living-room where the paladins had migrated and had been joined by Leo, and she stopped in the doorway. The woman raised an eyebrow at her little brother, then she glanced at the phone which he was still holding in his hand. A smile appeared on her lips as an idea bloomed in her mind.

"How did you break him? You're not getting a new toy, guys, this was the only one we had in stock!" Selena joked, approaching them. Her gaze stopped on the phone again. "What do we have here?... Who is this 'Annoying Mullet'?... Wait! Don't tell me this is THE Mullet he was talking about? Keith, right? Oh my God, so this man exists for real?!"

The green and yellow paladins looked at each other in surprise, and turned to the woman.

"Do you know Keith?" Hunk asked, astonished.

"Has Lance ever talked about him?" Pidge added, her fists clenched on the sofa's mattress, so excited that she could have jumped from her seat.

Shock painted on Leo's face. "Oh, you mean this is the man he was rambling about?!" Leo yelled, turning to his brother in a fast move that almost made him fall from his chair. "This is _the_ Keith?!"

Pidge was beaming, her huge toothy shit-eating grin directed to Lance. Even Hunk seemed to be uncomfortable around her when she was like this, a scary devilish creature.

Selena spoke again, so fast that she was becoming hard to follow. "What did he say? What has Keith sent to make Lance react like this? Was it a nude? If it was a nude I wanna see too!"

"Keith has asked him if he was okay," Pidge answered, irradiating something that felt like a blissful victory.

Selena let out a high-pitched shriek, Gabriel far erased from her memory, and Lance blinked at the sound. He raised his lost face to look at his sister who took him into a bear hug. "I KNEW IT!" Selena exclaimed straight in Lance's ears.

* * *

The night was thick and dark outside, and Coran's breathing was filling the room with a peaceful, reassuring atmosphere. They might have lost their ship, their last home, but the four of them were still together, along with Kaltenecker and the mice. Coran would heal fast and soon they would be able to take their Castle back. Even in the darkest hours, there were still ray of hopes to illuminate their path, and as for Allura, it was all that mattered. They were safe, they were together, and they were determined. They had defeated the Galra Empire, some teen space pirates wouldn't be so hard to put down!

But if Coran's theory was exact – and this sounded like the only logical explanation -, some of them were part Alteans, which meant that there were some other Alteans alive out there, hidden somewhere in the deep, vast universe. Maybe, just maybe they weren't the only ones of their species alive?

Leaning against Kaltenecker's back, Keith yawned behind his hand. His eyelids were falling heavily and the man was obviously struggling to stay awake. Allura had to admit she was getting sleepy too, but then the main issue imposed itself to the princess: there were only two beds in the room. Two king sized double beds, admittedly, but still only two beds, and there were four of them.

Allura's gaze wandered to her precious advisor. The mice were cuddling against Coran, warming him and protecting his wound, their tails knotted together in an intricate nest.

"I think it is time for us to rest," she indicated to the paladins, the hint of a blush piercing through her dark skin.

Keith opened his eyes suddenly, as if the thought of actually sleeping was worth being awake for a few more seconds. His look wandered to the two beds and his face and his shoulders fell heavily, he looked absolutely devastated and fragile.

"But… Um… Princess, there are only two beds," Shiro explained with a sad frown, looking almost as defeated as his friend. "And we all agreed on the fact that Coran deserves his own bed."

Keith nodded, his arms folded on his chest, no longer able to be more expressive.

Allura pinched her lips and looked around, as if a bed was going to appear from the shadow.

"We could switch places?" she offered in a weak tone.

"It's okay, Princess, you can have the other bed," Keith assured her, pinching his nose to stay awake for a few more minutes.

"I don't mind sharing," the Altean girl blurted so fast she didn't even realise that she had spoken out loud.

Keith raised an eyebrow and looked at her, she seemed genuinely concerned. Allura kept her gaze on him, though he knew what she truly wanted, even if she was too polite and too kind to voice it.

"I don't mind sleeping on the ground," Keith shrugged. All he wanted was to sleep, he _needed_ some sleep. The faster they would take their decision, the faster he could have some rest.

The light on the princess's pendant pulsed more intensely – _dum-dum dum-dum dum-dum_ -, and Shiro's eyes widened when he turned to Keith.

"Keith, I really think you should-"

"Stop acting like kids!" the red paladin raised his voice, upset and tired. "We all need to sleep, and don't act as if you couldn't share a bed! We're past those childish preoccupations and made up scenes, we all know you're going out!"

"Keith? Why are you so—"

The swordfighter cut his leader again. "Sleep. With. Her. Shiro. For god's sake, I swear I'm gonna kill someone if I don't get some sleep! _Please_!"

The couple looked at him, numb, and they slowly nodded without a word. Shiro blinked a few times before he gulped and looked at the Altean princess, his cheeks slightly redder than usual.

"I'm sorry?" Allura mouthed, but she was not particularly convincing with her equally red face.

"SLEEP!" Keith whisper-yelled, already lying on the floor, his back to Kaltenecker who was providing him an appeasing warmth. The paladin stuffed his jacket under his head in order to have a makeshift pillow, the handle of his knife in his hand, and he resolutely closed his eyelids. When he was sure that Shiro had listened to him and had climbed into his bed, a thought occurred to Keith who reached for his pocket. A discreet bluish light lit up in the room as he looked at his phone. Lance hadn't replied.

 _Quiznak_ , why was he so upset? Why was he so worried?

* * *

The rays of two green suns piercing through the curtains woke Shiro up late in the morning. The sheets were diffusing a comforting warmth and the black paladin could hear people breathing in the same room. He had absolutely no idea of where he was, but he couldn't care less, this had been his best night so far and for once he felt actually at peace. It was only when he felt something brushing against his chest that an alarm rang into his mind and Shiro opened his eyes on a sudden.

A soft murmur welcomed him and a cascade of silvery white curls was spreading out around him. A strand of silky hair was tickling his cheek pleasantly, and the black paladin couldn't resist touching it. His eyes followed the flow of hair and lingered on the princess's mocha skin. A light flared in the crook of her neck, and Shiro noted that even asleep, Allura was still wearing her necklace. A smile painted on the man's lips and he pulled his princess closer in a tight embrace, totally oblivious of the other two men in the room.

Several _doboshes_ passed before Shiro noticed a change in the atmosphere of the room. The peaceful breathings had stopped, replaced by jerky breaths in a corner. Allura stirred in her sleep, and slowly she put the sheets out of her face. Two turquoise gems focused on Shiro, worried, and they both sat in the bed. Coran was standing in the same position as them and they met his concerned gaze. His injury seemed to be his very last preoccupation, and he gestured to a vague form on the floor.

"I'm sorry… I couldn't keep you by my side… Forgive me… Please, forgive me…"

Tears were running down Keith's face in his sleep and Shiro got up to kneel beside his friend. The black paladin put his hand on the young man's shoulder, a sad and tired look on his face, wondering who he could be apologising to. Red, perhaps? It made sense since the red paladin had pointed out that the Lions were left without any protection but their own.

"It's okay, Keith, we're right here with you," Shiro murmured, squeezing him lightly. He stayed on the floor, sitting near the boy until his breathing steadied.

One _varga_ later, the red paladin woke up to worried faces, and his first reaction was to shut his eyelids closed in a vain attempt to hide from the others. He felt dry salty marks on his face and realised the reason of his friends' concerned attitude, which made him feel even worse and angrier.

"Are you okay, Keith?"

He couldn't bear the tone of Allura's voice. Keith forced himself to nod, without looking at any of them, and he stood up to show them that they didn't need to worry about him.

Shiro let out a brief sigh and walked back to the bed, glancing at Coran who sported a sad smile.

'The Castle has be stolen by space pirates, we're on our way to get it back. We all are fine, Coran has got a light wound on his side but it's not serious. Kaltenecker and the mice are with us.'

'The Lions are still in the Castle, though…'

'I think Matt knows some people who could help us finding a new ship, could you ask him for me, please? We're in a space harbour, I'm sending you our coordinates.'

Shiro sighed again and looked at his friends. Hopefully, Pidge would reply soon, she had always been keeping her phone with her since the day they walked their separated ways.

* * *

Lying on his bed in the dark, Lance clenched his fists into balls, wanting to punch something - preferably himself but it would have been difficult to do. He gritted his teeth and glanced at the screen of his phone for a few seconds before he muffled a rage moan in the blanket.

He hadn't replied yet, he didn't feel capable of doing so. The messages were still the same, unchanged.

 _"_ _I need to be sure you're fine."_ What was that?! How could _Keith_ , of all people, send _him_ a text like this?! He couldn't be worried about him, this was _impossible_! The only logical explanation, in Lance's opinion, was that someone had threatened to hurt him and Keith wanted to prove that they had lied.

"Lance, this isn't a freaking mafia movie, this is real life," the boy lectured himself. But what was real life, already? He had gone to space, further than any human besides his teammates would ever be able to travel; he had helped defeating a whole empire that threatened the universe. He could have made a movie about how much of a mess his life was! No, better idea: a whole tv series!

Another glance to his phone. _"Please, answer me."_ Lance could imagine the tone of his voice.

"WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME?!" the ex-blue paladin yelled loudly. "And what the hell is wrong with you?!" he screamed again, staring at his phone.

He didn't understand. He didn't understand anything anymore. This wasn't like Keith, this wasn't like him… This wasn't like them! They were rivals, they were friends, they were teammates, good acquaintances, but Keith wasn't one to send messages, especially not this kind of messages! Keith couldn't be worried about him, at least not out of battle, it was _weird_.

Lance flipped his phone unlocked and pressed his fingertip against the typing block of the screen. He was going to reply something light and sly when Pidge burst into his room without knocking.

"PIDGE?! WHAT THE FUCK, I COULD HAVE BEEN… naked?" Lance faltered, his cheeks red and his eyes locked on the girl who was only barely paying attention to him.

She waved her phone right in front of Lance's face, who frowned and took it out of her hand, already forgetting his first purpose of replying to the red paladin.

On Pidge's phone screen were messages from "Space Daddy" – Shiro, Lance assumed – and the boy read through them quickly, the lines between his eyebrows deepening as he went through the conversation. When he arrived at the final dot, Lance was standing up in his room without having realised that he had moved.

"We have to help them!" he declared when Hunk arrived in the room, rubbing his eyes sleepily.

"What have I missed?" the yellow paladin asked, his voice lower than usual.

"In a few words: the Castle has been stolen, the Lions are still inside, Shiro and the others are stuck in a space harbour and they need my brother to help them find a ship to get the Castle back," Pidge explained, which left her breathless.

"And we can't leave them like this," Lance finished, moving his arms angrily as he spoke. "We need to find a ship to go to them! Pidge, will Matt help us?" The girl seemed to be lost deep in thoughts. "PIDGE?"

She held her hand in front of him with a scowl. "Don't scream at me."

"Um… Guys… Does that mean we're going back to space?" Hunk pointed out with hope and happiness, his heart suddenly racing.

"I take it that you're in," the girl said with a huge grin which was feeling like wistfulness and joy. "Lance?"

The latter sat down on the edge of his bed, holding his head between his hands. "My family will never let me go again… It'll break their hearts…"

"We can understand if you want to stay," Hunk offered him with concern, putting his hand on Lance's shoulder to bring him support.

"But I _want_ to go with you guys!" the blue paladin declared, his bright eyes locked into his friends'. "I think… I think this…" he stammered, gazing at his friends, then pointing at the photos on his wall. "I think this is where I truly belong."


	5. Going with the flow

**Chapter 5 – Going with the flow**

Selena watched her brother walk into her room, he looked exhausted and weary. Despite him being a nineteen year old man, Lance's eyes sported this specific shadow of someone who had seen and experienced so much during his life, as if he had to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders.

"Sé, can I use your bathroom, please?" he asked, his voice charged with emotion.

"Don't you have one?" the woman joked, trying to act casual. She had always been this way, trying to act casual when she knew Lance was feeling low so that she could cheer him up without her little brother believing she pitied him.

"I don't have a bathtub and I really fancy a bath right now."

Yup, Selena could tell that he really did feel very low.

"Do you want your greatest big sister to rub your back? Don't be shy, Lance, you're still the same little boy to me, you will always be!" she cooed while squeezing the boy against her, laughing out loud.

"Selena!" Lance whined, already more expressive than when he had entered the room. "Stop it, you're being gross!"

The woman let him go when the paladin finally gave up and laughed with her, and she saw he was already feeling a little better. She gestured to the door which led to her bathroom, almost pushing him, and Lance closed the door behind him.

Selena heard the sound of a lock and she cracked a smile again. "Lance, don't you trust me?"

"No, I don't!"

"Oh, okay… Scream if you need help, I'll be right here!"

"YOU'RE BEING GROSS AGAIN."i

Through the wooden door she could hear his laughter.

* * *

Lance let out a long breath and gazed at his reflection in the mirror in front of him. He rubbed his face and stared at himself until the hint of the smile that remained on his lips had faded completely. He was going to break his mother's heart, again.

The pilot of the Blue Lion let his clothes slide lazily onto the floor and he ran a hot bath. The room, filled with steam, soon started to look like a sauna and the blue paladin immersed himself in the comforting, familiar hot water which caused a smile to appear on his lips. He let his thoughts wander away, his eyes closed to isolate himself from the outer world, a soft music playing in the back of his mind that Lance hummed absentmindedly with more and more confidence as his muscles relaxed.

When he opened his eyelids again, the mist was so thick that Lance could barely see around him. He let his palms rest flat on the surface of water and observed the little circles and waves that moved with him.

He was going to miss Earth again, to miss his family again… so why was he so happy to be able to go back up there in space? Why did it feel like a relief when he had missed his current life so much?

"I'm not sure I have a home anymore…" Lance thought out loud. Wherever he was, he still missed a place, a person, a feeling… But from what he had experienced in the short amount of time he had been back on Earth, the call of space was strong, powerful, as a force that would attract him in spite of whatever he would do to try and forget it… Space was to him what the sea was to sailors.

Maybe his home was his team, after all, his second family, the one he had chosen. Sure, he loved his parents and his siblings, and he adored taking care of Nathan and Lilí, but it was different. His dream life would have been to be able to combine the two, but once more it was impossible. He had chosen a life of Cornelian dilemmas.

Lance let out a groan and slid under water, holding his breath for as long as he could, this was to say for quite a long time. He used to play this game when he was a kid, and he could stay under water for almost three minutes before being in need of oxygen, two minutes when swimming if he watched his movements carefully.

He tried to delay the time until he had to face his family again as much as he could, but when Selena knocked at the door, he knew he couldn't avoid fate anymore. The water was getting cold, anyway.

The paladin put on fresh – humid - pants, gathered his stuff and left the room without a look to his big sister. Still humming a song, he went back to his room where Pidge and Hunk were waiting for him.

" _But my wife, my lover, my lady is the sea_ ~"

The yellow paladin laughed discreetly, relieved to find his friend in a better mood.

"Brandy, you're a fine girl!" Pidge exclaimed, raising her arm up in the air as if she was answering the question of her teacher. "It's the name of the song, right?"

"I don't know, am I a fine girl?" Lance simpered slyly, with an exaggerated pout to illustrate.

"I don't know, have you ever tried to wear a dress?" the girl teased him back.

Lance purposely avoided eye contact and began to look for decent clothes in his wardrobe, still whistling the same song again and again.

"Will your whole family attend your coming-out?" his best friend tried to joke. Lance glanced at him, his eyes full of panic, and immediately Hunk tried to make up for his lame attempt at lightening the atmosphere. "We'll be with you, Lance. And they will understand. You've saved the universe, announcing your family that you want to help your friends won't be such a big deal."

Lance looked at his friends again, they were so genuinely convinced that it would be fine, the blue paladin almost trusted their judgement. He moved to the door, his hand on the doorknob, and waves of anxiety submerged him again.

Hunk put his hand on his friend's shoulder and Pidge put hers on top of Lance's hand, on the doorknob.

They shot him an encouraging look that made his stomach do backflips.

* * *

Obviously, on the day Lance decided to tell his family about his decision to go back to space, Alonzo _had_ to be there with his children…

It was something to face the betrayed looks of adults, including his mom's, but the thought of breaking his niece and nephew's hearts was nearly making Lance sick. He had needed to drink several sips of pure syrup in order to raise his blood sugar and cease the uncontrollable shaking. Pidge hugged him one last time and Hunk patted him on the back, then the two paladins went to sit in a corner of the living-room where most of the McClains had already gathered.

A dozen of pairs of eyes were on the blue paladin when he spoke up.

"I have to tell you all something," he began, already feeling his voice breaking.

"Carry on, _mijo_ , we're all listening," his mother tried to encourage him, but she just made it more difficult. "What do you have to tell us that is so important to you?"

Her nice smile forced Lance to bite his tongue a few seconds to avoid bursting into tears and he took a deep breath, resolutely locking his eyes on a painting on the wall.

Without thinking, Lance chose to drop the bombshell. "I'm going back to space with Hunk and Pidge as soon as we find a spaceship."

Nothing could have prepared him to the chaos that followed. Words gushed from everywhere: on the couch, facing Lance, Aleja was yelling desperately, and her husband was shouting angrily; Selena was making unintelligible noises, Alonzo had jumped from his seat, and his children were chatting together in Spanish, holding each other's hands. Lance's grandmother was shedding tears, supported by her husband and Lisa, one of Lance's big sisters and the almost exact copy of their mother. Sarah, his biggest sister, was shaking her head in disapproval, as if she was thinking that they couldn't trust him anymore, as if it was only confirming doubts she already had. She pushed her glasses up on her nose and shot him a look full of disappointment and anger. In the middle of this chaos, Leo was quiet, staring at his little brother with an unperturbed look on his face.

Lance looked around, panicked, only understanding bits of sentences. _"You can't do this!", "…breaking Mamá's heart again!", "… leave us…", "…should be ashamed.", "… so worried…"._

The blue paladin closed his eyelids firmly and had no other choice than to shout, his clenched fist pressed against his ears. "STOP IT!" His voice was heartbreaking and his order seemed to be effective, as everyone got quiet, staring at him. Behind his closed eyelids he could still feel the heavy weight of Leo's eyes on him. "My friends need me, my Lion is in danger, I just can't stand idly by and wait for them to find a solution! _We are a team!_ We've gone through so many things together, I can't let them down! I love you all, I really do, and I understand your feelings, but I can't give up on them!"

He could feel his whole body shake and the first tear dropped straight to the floor, marking a clear circle on the formerly waxed wood. He heard a whisper coming from Selena and saw that she was asking something to the two paladins who were still standing in the corner, watching the scene with much concern. Lance didn't know what her question was, nor what his friends had answered, but his sister sighed wistfully before smiling softly at Lance, a sad but comprehensive light in her beautiful ice blue eyes.

"We still can't let you go, Lance," his father declared gravely. "We've worried about you enough during the past two years. You are going to give your mother a heart attack."

Leo was still watching him. Lance paled so much that he almost needed to sit down. Yet, he didn't. He couldn't let his determination falter, he knew his father was willingly hitting a nerve and after a brief inspiration, Lance locked his eyes into his father's.

"This time, I will be able to contact you. You will hear from me. It won't be the same." The trick was to say short sentences, to input as much power as he could into his words.

"Lance, please, _por favor, mijo,_ I'm begging you. Don't go, I couldn't bear it if you suddenly got silent and we couldn't know what happened to you… Don't, please don't. Not again, _mi querido…_ "

It costed so much to her son to speak his next words. "I'm sorry, Mamá, I have to go."

"How can you do this to her?!" The voice was Sarah's, sharp and clear. "Don't you have a heart?! Don't you love your mother?!"

Selena gasped audibly and Leo jumped slightly. He finally let his eyes go away from Lance to stare at their eldest sister, his brows raised in shock. Even Alonzo didn't dare to speak a word, a cold shiver running down his spine. Sarah always had this effect on people.

Lance gulped and took a step back as if she had just slapped him. He opened and closed his mouth many times like a fish out of water, totally out of words.

A voice raised behind Lance, startling him again. "Don't _you_ love your brother?!" All the eyes turned to Pidge who was shaking uncontrollably, her fists clenched in anger. "You don't know anything about him! You don't know anything about what he's gone through, about how much being away from you has hurt him! I know the feeling of being away from the ones you love, from your family! I know the feeling of not knowing if they are still alive! You can't say those things about Lance, I won't allow you to!"

"I agree with Pidge." Hunk intervened, no hint of hesitation in his calm voice. "We wouldn't be here now if Lance hadn't been with us. And he has missed you so much, he was dying to go back on Earth to see you and to tell you he was fine."

The blue paladin gazed at his friends between his tears, barely understanding what was happening.

"I think Lance should do what makes him happy," Lilí said, causing more tears to roll down Lance's cheeks.

"He will be fine! Lance is strong and smart, and he has already fought evil aliens!" her brother added with the same trustful tone.

The two siblings had big tears in their eyes but they were struggling to stay strong in front of their uncle, they wanted to show him that they supported him and that they loved him, whatever his decision would be.

"He'll just have to sing to make his enemies flee," Alonzo joked with a tiny smile, taking his children into an embrace and looking at his mother to reassure her. "Actually, I pity those poor guys."

"I can't let you go, Lance!" Selena voiced, her finger pointed at the ceiling and her stance kept straight. "Not until you've promised to send _me_ photos of your teammates!" she added with a very serious voice. She folded her arms, staying in her role for a few more seconds before she winked at her little brother with a huge grin.

Lance's look wandered to Leo who stared back without weakening. He remained silent and Lance looked at his mother again. She was sobbing into her husband's arms. Her mother, Evelyn, put her hand onto her daughter's shoulder and squeezed it lightly.

"Let him go, Aleja. If he decides to go away in this context, it will hurt both of you."

"I can't stay with you, Mamá. I would love to, but I can't." Lance affirmed while whipping his tears away, purposely ignoring Sarah who was shooting him death glares. "I'll call you whenever I can, I promise, but I can't stay here when I know my friends need help."

He felt Pidge's hand slipping into his palm and he squeezed it gratefully.

"Promise me you'll be careful," Aleja finally said.

Sarah stormed out of the room, pushing Lance out of her way. He knew what this was meaning: "I won't forgive you if you break her heart again", he understood her point of view.

"We'll make sure to bring him back in one piece," Hunk assured with a genuine smile.

The paladins waited there until everyone had left the living-room. Each member of the family either patted the blue paladin or hugged him before going through the door. Leo was the last one to remain in the room. He stood up from his chair and Lance almost thought he was going to pass in front of him without stopping. Instead, his big brother took him into a tight embrace, a huge grin on his lips.

"You've grown up so much, Lance, I'm really proud of you," the older one said in a soft voice.

His little brother stood still, breathless, trying to process what Leo had just told him. Lance's eyes watered again and he hugged his big brother back, tightly.

"Oh, but you're still a crybaby!" Leo teased the paladin while ruffling his hair, a smile full of pride on his lips.

When he finally let go of Lance, Leo left the room and his smile remained for a few more minutes. It was hard to let his little brother go away, and probably disappear again, at least for a while. Leo's heart ached, but he knew that it was what Lance truly wanted, what he truly needed.

"Hey, Leo?"

The man turned around to meet his little sister's concerned gaze.

"We shouldn't worry too much about him, Sé. He's in good hands, and he's not the little carefree crybaby he was anymore."

"Do you really mean it?"

"Don't you?" the man answered immediately.

Selena looked down, her clear eyes shaded by sadness and worry.

"I think he knows what's best for him. And he really cares about his friends, more than he has ever cared about any other person besides us. We should trust him," she concluded with a melancholic but resigned voice.

"Come here," Leo offered with a crooked smile, opening his arms in front of her. She jumped into his arms, focusing on taking deep breaths.

In the adjacent room, the three paladins flopped down onto the couch, leaning against each other in a perfect mess. Lance was still shaking, moved by the support most of his family had provided him and by Leo's declaration, and suddenly he began to laugh uncontrollably.

"It turned out better than I expected!"

Pidge raised her face to look at him, he was the embodiment of relief.

"But what about your sister, um… I'm sorry I don't remember her name." she said, talking about the woman with glasses who yelled at the blue paladin.

"Sarah? Yeah, she's almost never at home, she lives away with her husband. I hadn't seen her for years, actually. I mean, obviously I hadn't seen her for years because we were in space, but even before that she didn't come home very often."

"You don't really seem to be in good terms," Hunk ventured with a cautious frown.

Lance shrugged. "I barely know her, actually. The only ones who really have known her are Alonzo and Lisa, but as Leo, Selena and I are much younger, we have hardly been around her. The only sure thing I know about Sarah is that she loves our parents more than anything. I believe she hates me, now, since the 'Garrison Incident', as they call it."

"She's just worried," the yellow paladin assured while bringing his friend closer.

Instead of saying anything, the girl only let her head rest against Lance's shoulder and closed her eyes. They stayed like that for several more minutes, cuddled on the couch as if to reassure themselves.

Lance slowly calmed down and when he opened his eyelids again, he caught the yellow paladin glancing quickly at his phone.

"Shouldn't you call your parents, Hunk?"

His voice nearly startled the man who stared at him blankly for a few seconds. "Oh, um, yeah, you're right…"

The pilot of the Blue Lion frowned. He had thought this was what Hunk had in mind when looking at his phone, but apparently his mind was on other things and they were making him sad.

"What were you thinking about?" Lance queried, observing the pink spot that slowly coloured his friend's cheeks. The hint of a smile appeared on his lips. If Hunk was blushing, it could only mean one thing…

"It's weird to think that they haven't got any way to contact us, on the Balmera… I wish I could simply send Shay a message when I want to," Hunk admitted with a shrug, pretending it wasn't affecting him although his whole body language betrayed the yellow paladin.

"Hey, you know what?" his best friend started enthusiastically, pushing him gently. "When we get the Castle back and we come home, let's make a detour to the Balmera, so that you can see your girlfriend!"

Yellow's pilot looked away, still blushing and his eyes sparkling at the idea. Months had passed since the last time he had denied being Shay's boyfriend and even if he had hardly seen her more than four times altogether, he was irrevocably crazy about her.

Hunk's gaze stayed on his phone for several more minutes before he actually tapped it and dialled his mom's number. It rang four times, then a feminine voice rose from the device, barely audible for Lance and Pidge. Hunk started nervously pacing the room back and forth, though his smile was radiant when he talked.

"Hi, mommy!... Yeah, I've been at Lance's for a few days now… He's fine, he's fine, don't worry!"

"SAY HELLO TO YOUR MOM FOR ME!" the blue paladin yelled so loudly that he was sure the message had immediately been transmitted. He heard a laugh coming from the other side of the device and a satisfied grin painted on his lips.

"Pidge is here too," Hunk continued as if nothing had happened. "She says hello too. Oh, and Lance finally has a boyfriend!" The yellow paladin glanced at his friend who stuck out his tongue childishly. "Mommy says she's impressed," he informed Lance, trying not to laugh too much – Pidge, however, didn't fight her loud laugher. "No, it's a guy he's met in town, Gabriel… Mmh-hmm… No, not really. At least not that I know of. Um, I wanted to tell you that we'll be going back to space as soon as possible… Our friends lost the ship… I know!" Hunk looked like he was having a great time. "Sure, I'll send you photos. Postcards would be more difficult… Mmh, yeah, sure, if I can!... I hope so too," he finally added with a fond grin, his cheeks pink.

Pidge didn't give any more attention to her friend's conversation after this, feeling her phone vibrate in her pocket. She took it out and looked at the screen, which displayed two messages. One was from Shiro, asking her to keep him updated; the other one was from Matt, and it caught all her attention. Her fingers flew on the screen as she typed her reply.

"Hey, Pidge, who is it?"

She frowned, not even pretending to have been listening, and typed another message which was sent in less than a _tick_. The phone between her hands kept on vibrating, receiving decades of messages in a row.

"Is it Matt?" Lance asked again.

She seemed to be feverish, a dement look in her eyes, the shade of a smirk lifting the corner of her lips.

"Yup, it's Matt. He's insane. My brother is insane!" she declared proudly. "He's got a plan to get us a spaceship, and it's incredibly dangerous!"

Even Hunk seemed to be accustomed to this word, now: he didn't even cringe at the term, he only let out a weary sigh, as if to say "We're at it again."

"So, when are we going?" Lance queried immediately, his heart racing fast in his chest.

"All we have to do is to pack our stuff and buy tickets to the USA. Oh, and bring camouflage clothes if you have some, it'll be useful."

She typed one last message, pressed the "send" touch and gave the hugest grin to her friends.

* * *

The three paladins dropped their bags on the floor, exhausted by their journey. In less than two days, they had packed their clothes, bought some food, found plane tickets and travelled from Cuba to Nevada. Leaving the McClains had been the most difficult part of their trip, and it had ended in tears and shouts coming from every ways. Even Pidge had shed tears, moved by the affection that Lance's family gave Hunk and her, even if they weren't part of the family. Aleja McClain had insisted that they took a whole plate of her homemade roasted chicken and potatoes – which was so big that Pidge was intimately convinced it was actually a baby ostrich. The woman had firmly shoved the still steaming Tupperware's onto her son's chest and had demanded him to go, warm tears rolling down her face.

Pidge could still hear her shaking voice resonating in her head. "Take care of yourself, _pequeños_! Come home safe, and bring your friends, that's an order!"

"We will, _señora_!" Pidge and Hunk had yelled back together in response, using one of the only Spanish words they knew. Yet, this little effort had been enough for the woman to burst into tears into her husband's arms.

"It's a promise!" Lance had added in the same shaky tone his mother had used.

Lance's voice brought Pidge back into present, and she shook her head to gather her thoughts.

"Sorry?"

"I said: where are we going to stay for the night? Unless we're supposed to take action tonight, which I absolutely don't agree with," the Cuban affirmed, looking exceptionally tired. His hair was sticking to his forehead and he was standing half bent, as if the weight of the sky was pushing him down to the ground. He looked like he could trip and fall asleep on the floor.

Hunk wasn't looking much better with the huge bags under his eyes and his pale greenish skin tone. If flying a huge robot Lion was okay for him, planes and general means of transport weren't what one could call his cup of tea, and Hunk had been sick for the entirety of the flight and more.

"There's a hotel not far away," the yellow paladin informed his friends, eyes on his phone. "It's cheap but it seems okay, I've already booked a room for us. Two double beds, sorry guys."

"No problem, Hunk," the girl said with a smile, suppressing a yawn. She put her bags on her shoulders, almost collapsing under their weight, and looked at her friend again. "Go ahead, you're the one with the map, we follow you."

Fortunately, the establishment wasn't far away, and their walk lasted less than fifteen minutes. The brown haired young man at the office greeted them with a smile and gave them the keys quickly, aware of the gloomy fatigue aura which emanated from them. He offered to help them with their bags but they refused, probably too dryly than what the poor man deserved. He winced but the smile spread again on his lips. "As you wish. By the way, the breakfast is free for our residents, we serve it from five to eight in the morning. Have a nice night! And feel free to call me if you have any request!"

Pidge eyed him sleepily and thought that this guy was being way too nice to them, he looked like a genuinely kind man. She told her two friends to go first and stayed with the guy – whose name happened to be Rohan – a few more minutes.

When she finally arrived in the room she shared with the two paladins, Lance was sprawling on one of the beds, his luggage spread around him.

"I asked Rohan - the guy at the office - to bring us coffees when he can, we'll need them. I'm sorry, Lance, but we still have things to talk about before we can sleep."

"You drink coffee?" the sharpshooter asked in a voice heavy with sleep.

"Sure I do!"

Pidge sounded midly offended and Lance cracked a smile, his eyelids still shut.

Minutes passed, then hours before Rohan knocked on the door with three coffees. He shyly waved at them while leaving and Pidge wondered if it was the first time the guy met people his age in this establishment. Surely, that explained his odd demeanour.

The waiting had enabled the three of them to rest a bit, and they had taken a nap without realising it. Rohan had woken them up, and even if the three friends felt a bit sick, the caffeine relieved the tiredness a bit.

"So, tell me, Pidge, has Matt also asked you to send him photos?" Lance joked, a proof that he was indeed feeling better than previously.

The green paladin raised her eyes from her phone screen to her friend and blinked a few times.

"Of course not, he's coming with us, Lance."

The boy frowned and turned to Hunk who shrugged, still slowly taking sips from his hot coffee. This sounded like the worst idea ever.

"You were the first one to claim the mission as dangerous, I don't understand why you want to involve your brother," Lance said again, narrowing his eyes at the green paladin as if she were insane. "Adding one person to a high risk mission isn't what I'd call very smart. Pidge, I don't want to scare you but it will be hard to protect him too, even if-"

"Will you shut up for a second, Lance?" Pidge growled, her fists clenched and staring into his dark blue eyes. "Matt is the one to have planned the mission, he's helped me with many issues I couldn't find solutions to!"

Lance sighed, trying to keep his calm. "I get it, your brother is very smart and all, but-"

"No you don't get it!" the girl yelled, leaping on her feet to face him, her teeth gritted so tight that it made her jaws hurt. "Matt has been part of the rebellion for longer than we've been paladins of Voltron! He deserves his place amongst us!"

A tear of rage rolled down her face and fell to the ground, leaving a thin humid mark on her pale skin. She felt Lance's fingers wrapping tenderly around her wrists and he pulled her against his chest, close to his heart.

"I understand, Pidge. I understand."

His voice was soft and warm, comforting, familiar, and she felt Lance resting his head above hers. She had missed Matt so much, for a time so long that she couldn't bear Lance telling her to leave him behind again. His brother was as much a hero as they were.

Pidge hugged her friend back, her fists clenched tight on the fabric of his shirt.

"It's okay, Katie, we'll protect each other, and we'll come home safe."

It was so weird for her to hear her name, especially in Lance's mouth.

"Pidge. It's Pidge, you idiot." She corrected him with a smile.

* * *

The sun was about to rise when Matt finally knocked on their door, only to be greeted by two grumpy paladins, and another one who was high on caffeine. Unfortunately, the latter was his little sister.

As soon as she saw him, she jumped and hung to his neck like a kid.

"Brooo~"

Matt immediately stared threateningly at the two men behind her. "What did you give her?"

"She may have emptied all the coffee reserves of this town and the ones around," Lance explained, wrinkling his nose in disgust. Beside him, Hunk scratched his cheek sheepishly.

Matt let out a sigh and ruffled his sister's hair, smiling absentmindedly. He removed her hands from his neck to move freely and put his only – enormous – backpack in a corner of the room. Then, he sat down on the edge of one of the beds and looked at the others with a crooked unsure smile.

"Um, so, has Katie-"

"PIDGE!"

"Has Pidge told you about the plan?" Matt continued casually, still not used to her new name. Using his precious little sister's alias was kind of weird for him, but he respected her choice. She had abandoned her former life, her former identity, and he couldn't blame her for that, actually he understood it very well. Even he was no longer the boy who had disappeared on Kerberos years ago. He was stronger, smarter, and now he knew what life was made of, what captivity meant, what it was like to feel his life being slowly drained away without being able to move. Now, he knew war. And so did Pidge.

"We don't even know why we're here," Hunk admitted with a big yawn. His teary eyes betrayed his level of fatigue but he was doing his best to focus and follow the conversation.

"Obviously, we couldn't go back to the Galaxy Garrison and ask them to lend us a spaceship," Matt began to explain, but he was already interrupted by Pidge.

"Especially after our beautiful photo!"

"This, and the fact that you've hacked their system to enter the academy, then to mock them," Lance added with a proud smirk.

"So we had to figure out where to find an available ship. There, it occurred to me that we had another major problem," Matt continued, stopping to look at his friends one by one, catching their attention as a talented storyteller.

"A technical problem," Pidge hinted.

"The ship itself?" the yellow paladin guessed, as the smart engineer he was. "I mean, human-made spaceships are slow and fragile. They can't travel fast or far enough… At best, it would take us decades to join the others, only if we made it to there…"

"Yup, no known human ship can travel efficiently into space, and leaving the solar system wouldn't even be possible," Pidge confirmed gravely.

"We were lucky to find Blue back then," Lance sighed, looking out of the window in hopes of seeing his Lion appear from nowhere and land in front of the hotel. He missed her so much, but he knew she wouldn't come for him, even if she could, not after what he had done to her.

"So we had to find a way to either find a secret ship which could travel to outer space, or to build up our own." Matt said with the hint of a smile on his lips.

"And what have you chosen?" Lance asked with a frown.

"The third option, obviously!" the soldier declared proudly with a short laugh. "Life isn't about dichotomic choices!"

"We're going to find an E.T. ship!" his sister announced with enthusiasm.

"Wait… you mean… no way!" Lance beamed when he understood where they were going with it.

"We're in Nevada… which means…" Hunk stammered while the colours drained from his face again.

"We're going to The Farm!" Pidge yelled, raising her fist up in the air.

"Dreamland!" Matt added on the same tone.

Pidge had said the truth, it was a highly dangerous mission, which would definitely lead to their death if they failed – in the best case. They were going to break into Area 51, one of the most guarded places on Earth, to steal an alien ship from the government, and use it to fly to an unknown planet where they would join their friends. From there, they would have to use the same stolen alien spaceship, find the Castle of Lions, and take it back from unknown enemies.

It was an insanely mad plan, the probabilities of this mission being a success were about 2% or less, considering they had to find a functional ship big enough to host all of them, including Kaltenecker, and all the chances were that they would die during the flight, or even in Area 51.

Yes, definitely, Lance couldn't wait to start!


	6. Paladins phone home

**Chapter 6: Paladins phone home**

Hunk glanced over all the papers spread around them in the hotel room. Matt's bag was open in a corner of the room, empty and long forgotten, and all the books and papers were lying on every available surface. Pidge's laptop was displaying many windows and tabs, and half of the screen was covered by never ending lines of code, flashy green lights sparkling on a dark background. Lying flat on the floor, a pillow under her chest, the girl was typing fast on another laptop. Her glasses were reflecting the screen and Hunk noticed she was digging into the source code of another website, doodling scribbles on a sheet of paper beside the keyboard, a map laid out on the bare floor. Many pins were planted on the map with as many annotations, and it reminded the yellow paladin of Keith's shack in the middle of the desert.

"So, if I sum it up, all we have to do is to find a big functional ship and fly away from the government in less than a few hours? No sweat, man, it's almost too easy for us!" Lance bragged, a big grin painted on his face.

"But this time, we're talking about the army and the human government," Hunk pointed out, twisting his fingers worriedly. It was a thing to fight evil aliens, but to defy their own kind and steal a top secret object from the government in one of the most guarded area on Earth was something totally different.

"We've defeated Zarkon and kicked Lotor's ass, it'll be nothing for us!" the blue paladin repeated, a slight frown drawing on his forehead as his friends kept contradicting him. "They're just… you know, humans."

"You had your bayards and shields to protect yourselves. Tomorrow they'll be the only ones with weapons, we don't even know what technologies they have! They may even possess advanced alien technologies, as far as we know. We'll have to be discrete and swift-"

"As a coursing river, we got it!" Lance cut Matt with a wink, which still managed to make Pidge's brother smile. "But I feel like we should get some rest before we think about our real plan."

"Actually, it's already all planned," the girl intervened, closing her two laptops firmly with assurance and addressing a big shit-eating grin to the blue paladin. "I've got all the information I needed. I mean, Area 51's network is even less secured than the Garrison's, so it wasn't hard," she added with a proud smirk. "But I agree, we should get some sleep, we won't have time tomorrow… we'll be in space."

At these words, the four of them looked at each other, smiling even though the idea of flying a UFO that had crashed down on Earth wasn't the most reassuring idea ever. It was strange to think that at the same hour on the day after they'd be back in space. Their brief stay on Earth felt like holidays, but all of them knew that going back to the place they had left only a few weeks ago could turn out to be even more dangerous than defeating the Galra empire. Plenty of things could go wrong from the moment they'd step out of the hotel.

Lance laid down on his back, his arms crossed behind his head and staring at the ceiling above him, his face serious. On that night, he was feeling more human than ever.

* * *

Keith opened his eyes abruptly and let out a weary sigh, too tired to be irritated anymore. He hadn't been able to sleep, afraid that his nightmares would come back even more intensively. His back was aching due to the hard floor he had been lying on for hours without finding sleep and his whole body was so stiff that he could feel pain in every one of his muscles.

His gaze met the ceiling which reflected the shape of a pink satellite floating in the night sky, unreachable. Beside the boy, Kaltenecker was asleep and her body radiated a sweet warmth that would normally have helped the boy get to sleep.

Keith glanced at his phone and eventually sat up straight on the floor. He put his hand on the handle of his knife where the Blade of Marmora symbol was emitting a white glow. His training with the Blade might had been truly tough, and he might had nearly got killed at least ten times, but the only thought that he was the only one left made his stomach burn. He missed Kolivan. The Galra had been like a paternal figure to Keith, even though he had never gone easy on him, and losing Kolivan had made the boy feel abandoned again. He had lost every people he had loved in his life: his mom, his dad, and now… now he had lost Red and his friends weren't with him anymore. Even Shiro felt out of reach, now that his thoughts were focused on the Princess of Altea.

Keith let out another sigh and ran his hand over his face, leaning against Kaltenecker's side. He would have loved to go training or just to go out for a walk, but they were on a totally unknown planet. Even if he still had his bayard and his knife, he didn't want to leave the others alone, especially with Coran being injured.

A bluish light coming from Shiro's phone lit up the room, but the black paladin didn't seem to notice, already asleep. Keith looked at his friend and back at the phone. The room was so small that he could read the messages as they appeared on the screen from where he was. They were from Matt.

Matt_ Hang on, we're acting tomorrow. If you don't hear from us in two days from now, it'll be because we're either in big troubles, or dead, or lost somewhere in space, or dead in space... I'm joking, don't worry, everything should go according to our plan.

Matt_ Oh, and don't do anything I wouldn't do! ;)

Matt_ grheosljqd

Matt_ Sorry, Pidge stole my phone. Again.

Keith cracked a smile, but the odd twist in his stomach still refused to leave.

* * *

A timid knock on the door was enough to wake the paladins up in a start. Pidge automatically grabbed her glasses and Matt jumped on his feet by instinct. He rushed to the door and stayed in front of it, back to his friends and ready to welcome whoever was there, his staff in his hand. Behind him, Lance fell from his bed with a loud noise, trapped by the bedsheets and blinded by his night mask. Meanwhile, Hunk was still sound asleep, nice and warm.

The door handle lowered slowly and soon the door opened, revealing light brown curls and a pointy nose.

"Um, m-my apologies, but the little miss asked me to wake you up. It's already past seven o'clock, so I thought that you may like to have breakfast…" Rohan hesitated, ready to flee if they exhibited any sign of aggressivity towards him.

Matt sighed heavily and sat down on his sister's bed, looking exhausted. A nervous laugh took him and earned him weird looks from the poor employee. The latter glanced at Pidge, who yawned and waved her hand as if she weren't only wearing large pajamas.

Rohan cleared his throat and quickly looked away, his cheeks turning a slight shade of pink that Matt noticed immediately. This detail had the terrible effect of making him laugh even louder, so loud that it woke Hunk up more efficiently than the Castle of Lions' alarm.

"I'm just… gonna leave it here…" Rohan declared, his voice shaking and a bit cold because of the uneasiness state he was in. He pulled the room service cart inside the bedroom and turned to leave. He was going to step out when his eyes caught a glimpse of the mess on the floor, and he couldn't help but let out a helpless scream. There were loads of papers and electronic wires, some of them glowing and flashing weirdly, and Rohan couldn't help but explore the possibility of the four people in front of him being dangerous terrorists. He raised his look to meet the other four's, terrified, and they stared back at him with a frown.

"What's the matter?" Pidge asked him, her voice still heavy with sleep.

Rohan startled. "Nothing. Please keep this place safe, I haven't been hired anywhere else," he begged hurriedly in a tiny high voice.

"What are you talking about?" the girl growled - she was definitely not a morning person. She met his scared gaze and followed his look as he glanced at the electronic mess on the floor. Suddenly, something clicked in her mind. "Wait, we're not making a bomb or anything. We're a university team, we're building a robot for a contest in L.A.!" she improvised while Hunk and Lance eyed her with respect. "There's the motor over there, and the flashing lights will be put behind the eyes and in the mouth -we're making a small lion robot, actually. There, you can see the Arduino card near my computer, so that we can program it to roar and walk and jump, and I think we'll also need suspensions because it could crash badly, but-"

"Woah, Pidge, stop! You don't even know him, he could be part of another team, he could steal our ideas!" Matt yelled suddenly, grabbing papers covered with intricate patterns and putting them on his heart like he would have done with a baby.

"Now he's gonna steal our lion idea!" Hunk complained loudly, pretending the tears in his eyes were of worry and not just him still being sleepy.

With this safer explanation, Rohan's tension progressively disappeared and his body relaxed noticeably. He nodded and leant against the wall behind him, as solid as slime.

"So, you guys are just nerds?" he asked, evading the robotic subject as he didn't know a single thing about it.

Pidge cringed and pulled her blanket back on herself, reacting as if she had just been slapped. She looked away, her eyebrows drawn together and her jaw tensed. Matt discreetly took her hand into his and squeezed it like he used to do when they were kids and his sister was sad.

"Yeah, nothing to fear, buddy," Lance affirmed with a reassuring smile to the employee. He casually grabbed a cup of coffee, put it to his lips and cringed at the bitterness.

* * *

"Has everybody understood the plan?" Matt asked his friends, looking alternately at each one of them.

They were standing at the very edge of Area 51, at the only place that could be hacked for a few seconds without the government noticing. There were mainly sand dunes around them, dotted with spiky bushes that popped here and there out of the ground. A few meters away from them, a barbed wire fence was the only thing betraying the limit of the military area, but they knew that drones were on patrol around them, unnoticeable, or nearly.

"Pidge neutralizes the patrollers. Then, we split into two teams - Pidge and Hunk, and you and me -, we break into the base, we seek for a not-too-destroyed-and-big-enough spaceship in the hangars and we tell the other team when we find one thanks to the wireless LED-equipped bracelets Pidge has built. Aaaand we're careful and we try to avoid any contact with the guys working there." Lance recited seriously, a slight smile drawing on his lips at the end of his speech.

"Basically."

"What if we're found? What if some of us get caught?" Hunk raised.

"We try not to hurt people from the military base too much," Pidge suggested with a shrug. "And we use the button I've fixed on our shoes, it'll lit up the other team's bracelets red and send them our location in real time. Easy."

When Hunk listened to the Holts, he had the feeling that nothing could go wrong. To be honest, he didn't know whether it was a reassuring feeling, because with a plan so big and so well-thought, if something failed they would be in serious troubles.

He watched as Pidge took the scrambler out of her pocket. It was only the beginning.

* * *

Fortunately for them, the hangars were all next to each other. Some of them were big enough to store two big planes, and some others were only the size of a small bedroom.

Matt and Lance chose the small one on their right while the other team chose the biggest hangar they could find.

"The path is clear," Lance told Matt through the walkie talkie Pidge had given them. She had modified it so that the signal couldn't be intercepted, and they could choose to talk either to their teammate or to the other team.

"Roger. Try to find a weapon you could use, just in case. I'm coming your way," the former member of the rebellion replied, looking around him and paying attention to every sound. Hopefully, Pidge had managed to deceive the cameras. Otherwise, they'll have company very soon.

The hangar was full of shelves and tubes and looked like a cabinet of curiosity. There were things that Lance guessed were weapons and others for which he couldn't figure out their utility. There were even aliens in jars. He wasn't certain they were all dead, however: he was convinced that he could feel their eyes on him…

"What was that?!" Matt whispered hurriedly, startling the sharpshooter who attempted to hit him with his elbow.

Lance grabbed him by his collar, angry, but Matt just pointed his finger at a glowing thing hidden behind the shelves.

"It... it's a pool!" the blue paladin declared without even being able to see it. He would have recognized the scent and the particular way water reflected light anywhere. "But why is there a pool in a place like this?!"

His eyebrows drew together as he walked towards the source of the light splashing sound. He moved slowly, already forgetting the hand Matt had on his shoulder, until he could put his hand on the thick glass.

Is there was a pool hidden in one of Area 51's hangars, that could only mean one thing: there was an aquatic alien kept somewhere in there, there was no other explanation. The picture of Plaxum appeared into his mind and Lance's heart started beating faster.

"Matt, I think there's an alien in there. We have to help them!"

The latter shot him a worried look. What was Lance thinking about?!

* * *

The other hangar was divided in two parts: the first one, closest to the door Pidge and Hunk had entered by, was full of shelves ; the second part was a huge room full of space debris and ship leftovers.

The two paladins knew they should have foremost focused on the ships, but their curiosity was too strong and they had chosen to explore the first room a bit before taking a look at the spacecrafts.

Their hangar didn't seem to be used for weapon storage. Instead, they were surrounded by alien and non-alien-looking things, and it looked more like a normal museum than the block Matt and Lance where in.

On one shelf were disposed a red fez, next to a hand that looked human and which was floating in a jar. It reminded the two paladins of something but they couldn't put their finger on it. Next to them, they recognized an Arusian horn-shell like the ones Arusians had on their head. They didn't know if they were just fancy hats or part of the aliens' bodies, and it sent a shiver down their spines. Some Arusians might have found a unhappy ending on Earth at some point in History...

"Hunk! Look at that!" Pidge exclaimed a few minutes later, her eyes sparkling with joy and fascination and pointing at a shelf with unconcealed excitement.  
The yellow paladin turned to her and took place behind the girl. She was pointing to a pyramidal object which seemed to be a deactivated robot. When he looked closely, Hunk spotted lines curved in the sides, and suddenly he understood the reason of her bliss.

"Ooooh, is it really a Galra robot?" he whispered.

"It's the exact same model as Rover!" the girl almost yelled. She extended her arm to brush the surface of the robot, tears in the corners of her eyes. "I wonder if I could take it…" she thought out loud, raising an interrogative and begging look at her companion.

"And I wonder what two young people are doing in a place like this," a strong unfamiliar voice replied behind them.

They turned round as one and faced a tall man in a black tuxedo. His skin was dark and his hair cut short in the military style. He was wearing a pair of opaque sunglasses, and Hunk saw a badge on his chest which read "James D. Edwards".

"We… were looking for the toilets?" Pidge hazarded, glancing at Hunk.

The boy seemed to understand the message because he saluted the man like they used to do back at the Galaxy Garrison. The move allowed him to press his heels together, activating the rescue button that Pidge had -thank God- cleverly put on a discrete spot.

"We are sorry, sir... we are from the Galaxy Garrison, sir… we just wanted to see if the aliens rumours were true… sir!" Hunk exaggerated, his heart racing fast in his chest. It wasn't like him to play a role to trick people, and he had to admit that the exercise was pretty difficult.

Pidge sighed, pretending to be exasperated so that they could earn some time.

"Oh, thank you, _David_ , I was going to save our skins and you just chicken out like always!" the green paladin acted, doing her best to keep their identities a secret. If the guy knew about the Galaxy Garrison -which was most likely the case, considering they were at the place where all alien-related things were hidden from civilians-, he surely knew about the cadets who had disappeared years ago. Chances were that he knew about the little trick the Holts had recently played to the Garrison too.

The man wearing a tuxedo smiled. "Listen, kids, I don't know what you're doing here, but I'll have to ask you to follow me. There is nothing to see, and there has never been any alien on Earth before. We are just keeping movie replicas in here, but we must entertain the myth. You know, it brings a lot of money to the government," he lied with so much assurance that the paladins wondered if he believed his own words. Perhaps he was going to brainwash them.

"Oh, but then what is this?" Pidge asked, taking the Galra robot from the shelf and now playing dumb.

"Just a military drone prototype. Now put it back on its place and come with me."

The man named James started stirring and he was keeping his hand near his pocket, which was ominous, in Hunk's opinion. The man was going to get something out of his pocket when he froze suddenly. He turned round in the time of a blink but the projectile hit him and he fell down on the floor, shaken with slight spasms.

"Team Latte saves the day!" Lance exclaimed, standing up from behind a box. In his hand was a metallic crossbow he had found in the other hangar. The bolts that went with it had the particularity to release electricity when they hit their target and it had seemed to be the best and the safest choice for the sharpshooter, as he didn't know how the gun-looking weapons worked.

"Thanks, Lance!", Hunk declared, relieved. He let out a huge sigh to release his tension and clenched his fists several times.

"Guys, what is that?" Pidge enquired with a frown, holding her future Rover 2.0 close against her chest. She pointed at the giant tube on wheels that Matt was rolling behind him.

"We've found an alien who is still alive," her brother explained, looking at the small being who was looking lost in its fishtank. "They had left him in a pool and, well, we couldn't just leave him in this place…"

The alien locked its big black eyes into Pidge's and she nodded in agreement. The creature had a very human-like face shape that made it look like a young child, it was also the same height as an average six years-old kid. Its skin was black and white, like an orca, and when the paladins looked at it, it clapped its fins happily. The two big seal fins were half the size of its body and in Lance's eyes, it made the alien look like a clumsy young selkie - a folklore creature.

"How do you know it's a he?" Hunk asked, looking at the humanoid seal. "I mean, we never know, with aliens."

"Actually, we don't know either. Matt is sure that they're a he, and the alien doesn't seem to know our language…" the blue paladin said, glancing at the space selkie again. "But abandoning this alien over there… it just didn't feel right."

They paused for a minute, then Pidge reminded them that they should hurry before other guards showed up. James D. Edwards was still lying on the floor at their feet, looking asleep, and they checked that he was still breathing before they left.

Matt carried the seal alien with him all the way to the second room of the hangar ; there, the four humans stopped, stunned. They had wished for spaceships but they would never have thought that there would be so many of them. They were surrounded by spacecrafts in diverse operating states.

The little group walked down the aisles and Lance stopped in front of a arrowhead-shaped dark-coloured ship. It was destroyed and parts of the hull were missing, but he took a photo by instinct. When he turned to face the others, he could only see the selkie staring at him with what he interpreted as fascination.

The team examined a dozen of spaceships but none seemed able to take them off Earth. Some of them were lacking a motor, others were lacking a means of propulsion, and even the engineer trio didn't manage to figure out how some of them worked.

Eventually, the group stopped in front of a huge, classic flying saucer that could have been straight out of a movie. They looked at each other with hope in their eyes: it seemed big enough for them all to fit in, even when they'd have joined their friends. The motor was there, the hull was okay, and it looked able to get off the ground.

"Do we try this one?" Pidge asked, waiting for her friends' opinion.

"I don't think we've got the choice!" Matt yelled, already pulling the fishtank on the ramp to the ship and pointing at the three people who were running in their direction, holding weapons in their hands.

The paladins climbed into the ship in hast. The technology was old enough for the group to easily understand how it worked. Lance turned it on and the spacecraft got off the ground immediately. The engine wasn't fluid to drive like the Lions, instead it was rough, coarse and heavy, more like the cargo he used to pilot in the Garrison simulations, but quicker.

The blue paladin smirked.

"What do we do about the roof?!" Hunk screamed, hanging on anything that could avoid him from falling. The scene felt awfully familiar, it felt like the very beginning of their adventure, when they had saved Shiro and travelled through space in the blue Lion. And to Pidge and Hunk, it felt like Lance's piloting skills were the same as they had been at that time, too.

"We don't have time to worry about the roof!" Lance declared in a tone that terrified his teammates. "We're going through the wall!"

The paladins' hearts missed a beat.

The pilot didn't cease smirking. He glanced over the instrument board and crashed his hand on the big red button in the middle.

"LAAANCE!"

They closed their eyelids, waiting for the impact.

A weird noise came from their craft, high-pitched, followed by the angry yells of the men who had been going after them, and when Pidge, Hunk and Matt opened their eyes again, they could see the desert under them. The flying saucer was hovering in the sky and Lance shot one last look at the earthen landscape. He turned to his friends for a short second, etching the moment in his mind, and pulled the lever.

"What… What happened?" Hunk stuttered, finally daring to breathe again.

"I pressed the red button," Lance said with a shrug that he wanted nonchalant. "It activated the lasers and got us out of there."

The four humans remained silent and the only sound to break the quietude of the instant was the soft clapping of the water against the glass of the selkie's fishtank.

Through the window, Earth became rounder and soon they were high enough to distinguish the oceans and the continents. Lance glanced at their planet again and his chest ached dramatically. He pressed his fingers against the lever and only Matt's warning prevented him from hitting what he first thought were asteroids.

If he hadn't been struggling to save their lives piloting the flying garbage can, the blue paladin would surely have screamed out of anger and frustration. Around Earth, their beautiful, precious home planet, was gravitating a space debris belt made of satellites and tiny bits of metal that were flying around, fast and sharp, threatening.

"To your left!" Matt warned again, holding onto the pilot's chair.

Lance took a corner so tight that Hunk hit the wall and water spilled from the aquarium that Pidge was struggling to keep upright. The selkie yelped and took refuge in the lowest part of its shelter, terrified. The alien barely understood what was going on nor who those people were, and it was surely going to die there. It had barely known anything yet...

"Why is this ship so stiff?!" the paladin complained, gritting his teeth and taking another rough turn in order to avoid the metal dust.

After a struggle that felt like it had lasted hours, he successfully got his little group of friends out of the debris belt. Fortunately, the hull of their saucer was so thick that it had barely taken any damage, and Lance was a good enough pilot to limit the impacts. Anyway, they were lucky that old alien technologies were resistant.

"O-Okay," the sharpshooter managed to pronounce once his hands had stopped shaking and he had caught his breath -why did flying Altean spaceship feel so much easier?!. "Does anyone know where we're supposed to be heading?"

The green paladin weakly took her phone out of her pocket and scrolled through her old messages. She copied figures into one of her apps, which seemed to be written in Altean letters, and a loading logo appeared in front of her. After two long minutes -should they use _doboshes_ again?-, the result materialized in the air above her phone.

"The good news are that Shiro and the others aren't too far: they're on Aldebaran b, a planet located in the Alpha Tauri system," Pidge declared. "We can see the star from Earth, near Orion."

"And what are the bad news?" Hunk questioned, already regretting it.

"It's a bit more than sixty-five light years away from here," the girl continued in a grave tone. "Let's hope that this thing can create wormholes or travel faster than light, or else…"

"If this garbage saucer managed to reach and crash on Earth, there must be something like a turbo among all those buttons," Lance cut her, denying the possibility of their mission being a failure. "Lend me a hand to find it, and we'll be with the others for dinner!"

"Actually it would be a good thing, because I don't think we'll find anything edible on this ship…" Hunk pointed out.

They took one second to take the information in and all the group started looking for the touch that would save them all. Even though the spacecraft was big, they couldn't last more than a few days without water - and drinking the water from the aquarium didn't sound like a good idea.

The humans gathered around Lance and examined each button on the board. It didn't took them a long time to understand that most of them had absolutely no purpose. They might had been broken long ago and were now out of order, unfortunately for the paladins.

"Guys, do you think we'll have enough oxygen? Oh god, I feel bad, I think I'm suffocating…" the yellow paladin panicked, looking around him and putting his hands around his throat.

Matt put his hand on Hunk's shoulder and advised him to take deep breaths. The spaceship was big enough and there was surely an oxygen synthesizer somewhere on board -in the case that the little green men who had been using the ship before them breathed oxygen, but Matt avoided mentioning this condition.

Pidge stared at a lever which was hanging from the ceiling and climbed on Lance's seat to reach it. She grabbed the bar and put all her weight to lower it, ending up only hanging on it without any other support, but it still resisted her. It took all the boys' strength to get the lever down, and when they finally succeeded, an alarm activated and rang so loudly that they were convinced they'd be deaf by the end of their journey. A voice raised in the speakers but none of the paladins could understand the language. Pidge was taking her phone out of her pocket in order to find a translation when her brother spoke.

"It says that we've activated the autopilot mode," he affirmed, beaming when he realised he recognised the language one of the rebels he had worked with had taught him a few sentences of. "All we have to do is to enter the coordinates!"

Pidge executed immediately and the ship accelerated greatly as soon as she validated their destination. An informatic screen substituted to the sight of stars scrolling on the other side of the glass screen, displaying figures that seemed to be a countdown.

"Um, guys, are you sure it wasn't the autodestruction mode?" Lance asked, swallowing, his eyes locked on the numbers that were rapidly decreasing.

"I think it's the time that's left before we're there," Pidge hazarded, tilting her head on the side. She walked to a seat near the wall and sat down, quickly joined by her brother who took a card game out of the only bag he had managed to take with him on the ship.

"Anybody's up for a little poker game?" he offered with an ominous laugh.

Lance wasn't listening anymore, absentmindedly playing with his phone in his pocket. He finally took it in his hand and stared at the lock screen - a blurry selfie Selena and Leo had snapped when they had stolen their brother's phone. A small white piece of paper stuck in his phone case caught Lance's attention, and he unfolded it. A phone number was written messily, and Lance couldn't help but smile slightly when he saw it.

He hadn't texted Gabriel yet. Actually, he didn't know anymore whether he should do it or not: they were in space and Gabriel was just a human who had absolutely no idea of how gigantic the universe really was. Was it selfish to ask him to wait for Lance to go back on Earth - if he did go back -? Was it better not to want to involve him in that spatial mess that Lance's life was?

To be honest, the blue paladin wouldn't have traded a minute of his adventure for anything in the universe. He had grown so much, and even the way he looked at the sky, at the world, had changed. He had made precious friends, he had learnt many things and discovered peoples and planets that he was sure no human would ever see again. Going back to the course of his previous life would be impossible for Lance, and he knew better than anyone that his friends felt the same way.

Suddenly, his gaze met the selkie's, and Lance got up from his seat to the center of the room.

"We promised we'd take photos for our families, right? Let's start now!" he cheered with a huge grin, holding his phone in front of him.

He put his arm around the fishtank and the selkie pressed its head against the crystal glass as if to hug Lance. Pidge slipped beside the aquarium, pressing her cheek against its side, and Matt pressed his face against the glass behind them, making weird faces at the camera through the deformation of water. Hunk joined them, laughing out loud, and hugged Pidge tight. The photo that resulted of this scene was so ridiculous that it immediately became one of their favourites.

Lance sent it to his brother and his sister right away with a huge grin on his face, asking them to print it for him. While scrolling through the massive amount of pictures he had into his phone -selfies, cute girls, food, useful photos he kept in the eventuality of future blackmailing-, Lance came across the photo of the damaged ship he had taken in the hangar and suddenly a detail hit him.

In the background, near what was left of the pilot seat, was a symbol that he knew very well, for having seen it -and kinda missed it- for months. The Blade of Marmora symbol was engraved in the wall behind what was left of the command board.

"How high do you think the probabilities of several Galra ships with the Blade's symbol crashing in the USA are?" he asked around, his face so pale that he looked like he had just seen a ghost -which was more or less the case.

"What are you talking about?" Pidge replied with a deep frown.

The sharpshooter handed his phone over to his friend whose face displayed various emotions in the time of a few seconds.

"Do you think…" she began, turning her look to the Galra robot she had taken with her, and then back to Lance, a light of what seemed to be worry into her big hazel eyes.

"How many Galra-human hybrids who lived in the USA do you know?" Lance tried to joke, not sounding convincing at all -he sounded concerned, almost afraid, with an ounce of feverish hope piercing through the very bottom of his voice. "Perhaps… I think that this ship might have belonged to his mother. To Keith's mother, I mean..."

The paladins looked at each other in silence, Matt was staring at Lance from his place. Then, he glanced at the screen on the front of the ship. If he understood it correctly, and considering the spectacularly high speed at which they were passing stellar bodies, they would be on Aldebaran b in fourteen hours.


	7. A million dreams

_**[** Previously on Homesick:_

 _The Castle of Lions has been stolen!_  
 _In order to help their friends taking it back, Lance, Pidge, Hunk and Matt have broken into Area 51 to steal a flying saucer and made a selkie-alien friend on their way! Meanwhile, Coran, Allura, Keith and Shiro are stuck on a foreign planet named Aldebaran b, without any way to leave.]_ _If you want to have updates about my chapter progress, you can follow me on Instagram (tinkerplume) or Twitter (KuroganeNoFeari)!_

* * *

 **Chapter 7: A million dreams**

When the red paladin woke up, he found out that he was sitting against a wall of the hotel room in a very uncomfortable position. The sun was shining bright by the window and he could hear birds babbling joyfully, but it wasn't enough to release the paladin from the heavy weight he could feel in the pit of his stomach. He had had another nightmare, which had been even worse than the last one. This time, Lance had been the one to lock him into the dark room. Keith didn't remember his words exactly, but he could feel the trail of dried tears on his cheeks.

He stood up painfully, stretching his arms in front of him and cringing at the feeling. When he looked around him in the room, his heart missed a beat. He was alone. The sheets of the bed Coran had occupied were crumpled, as if he had had to leave in a hurry and on the contrary, the other bed had been carefully made. Keith looked at the middle of the room where Kaltenecker had been sleeping for the time they had stayed in the hotel, but even the cow had vanished, leaving absolutely no trace of ever having been there.

The boy hastily grabbed his knife and opened the door wide without thinking. He rushed into the street which was full of diverse aliens again -it seemed like the city they were in never slept- but nobody turned to look at him. It was hard to believe, but people were too busy minding their own business to notice a human running and shouting incoherent words in the crowded street. It was like Keith was back in the USA.

"Shiro! Allura! Coran! Please, someone, answer me!" the paladin called around again. He put his hand to his pocket to take his phone but realised that it wasn't there, he must have left it at the hotel. "Shiro! Coran! Princess!" he yelled again in spite of his shaking legs.

Suddenly, he spotted a wave of white bangs from the corner of his eyes and ran in that direction as if he had the devil at his heels, not giving a _quiznak_ \- but actually nobody had noticed him, people were still chatting in a deafening hubbub.

Even if was certain he had seen Allura's mane, it was not her that the boy met at the corner of the street, but Coran. The man was keeping his hand on his ribs, a fierce light sparkling threateningly into his blue eyes.

"Coran?" Keith hesitated, scared by the gloomy glare the Altean was giving him. "What's wrong? Are you okay? Do you need some help?"

The latter snorted and his gaze froze the paladin's blood.

"It is all your fault," Coran began, all colours drained from his face. Between his fingers which were still pressed on his wound, a thick trickle of blood started flowing weirdly. "You were selfish enough to leave the Castle. They surrounded me, I could do nothing! If you had stayed, I wouldn't have been injured, and they wouldn't have stolen the Castle and the Lions. No wonder why people give up on you."

Sweat drops beaded up on the man's forehead and he had to lean against a wall to keep standing up. His skin looked even paler and Keith had to blink a few times to make sure that he was really disappearing. The paladin extended his arm to grab Coran's shoulder but his hand closed on emptiness and Keith stumbled, his head hitting the brick wall in front of him so hard that he heard a piercing noise and the street started moving around him. He pushed on the wall to get back on his feet, struggling with his dizziness and watching the world spin and zoom in and out on small details. Then, a sound he knew more than anything else hit him like a meteor.

He raised his head to look at the sky and noted that the buildings in front of him weren't there anymore. A copper sand desert stretched as far as the eye could see, and the air was suddenly so hot that it was unbreathable. A light burning wind brushed the paladin's cheeks and he closed his eyes again to focus on the growl he was sure he had heard.

It resonated again, and Keith realised that it was actually coming from the depth of his mind.

"I can hear you. I'm listening. Tell me, where are you?" he whispered, putting all his will into focusing on the presence he could feel. "You too?!" Keith exclaimed, opening his eyes in shock.

He startled when he saw that nothing was there for him to stand on, but he soon recognized the place: it was the astral plane the paladins sometimes shared - but this time he was the only human there. He was floating vertically, without any effort, and when he looked around him, all that he could see were purple galaxies spinning slowly far away in the distance.

Then, they appeared, and a smile lit up Keith's face until he understood what was actually going on. Red didn't even shot him a look, busy dodging her opponent's deadly attacks. In front of her, hovering and glowing with power, Black had unlocked his jawblades. They held their position and the paladin held his breath, totally helpless. Again, Black was the one to make the first move.

He swooped down on the Red Lion and the metal collided with a screech, sparkles coming from the impact.

"Black! Stop! What are you doing?!" the boy couldn't help but scream, not able to help his former Lion in any way.

The biggest robot turned his head to look at him. When he spotted the human, the Lion lowered his shoulders with a threatening roar, and Keith recognised a typical feline hunting stance.

The boy stepped back but the lion had already pounced on him. Keith waited for the impact, already picturing the gigantic claws crushing him. He gritted his teeth in anticipation, but the impact never came. Instead, he heard Red hissing. He turned to the source of the sound and saw his Lion falling down on her back under the other's hit. She tried to get up but Black was obviously stronger, and he managed to keep her down without any effort. The Black Lion opened his mouth, unveiling his long sharp fangs, and sunk his teeth into the Red Lion's belly without showing any mercy. Red roared in protest, stirring to get out of her leader's grip, and in front of them, Keith was frozen, unable to move nor to scream anymore. The paladin's vision became blurry, but he saw Black biting off pieces of the other Lion's mechanism.

" _Stop that! Why are you attacking us?!"_ the human screamed into his mind, no word managing to get out of his lips.

Keith heard a soul-crushing death rattle, and then nothing anymore. Pain filled his chest and water flowed down his cheeks as he witnessed the macabre scene. There wasn't any blood, but somehow it was worse.

Then, Black turned to him and pounced on him once again.

Keith's eyes snapped open, he looked around him, panting, lost. He was back in the deserted street of the space harbour, safe and sound, and the relief that rose into him almost made him fall on his knees. He took a few _ticks_ to catch his breath and calm down the erratic pulsing of his heart. It couldn't be true, Black would never have attacked Red… right?

The paladin felt sick, not knowing anymore what was true or not, and having no way of making sure that Red was okay was only adding to the awful feeling that was creeping like a monster inside of him. He started moving. His mind was blank and he just followed the path that his footsteps automatically traced for him.

He entered a wide place dotted with a few feathery trees, and that's where he found one of his missing friends. He heard Shiro before he could see him, but Keith would have recognized his voice anywhere.

"Keith, what are you doing here?" Shiro asked him with a frown, his voice colder than ice. He looked at the red paladin up and down, so standoffish that it hurt Keith more deeply than we would ever admit.

"I was… You all were gone when I woke up, I was worried… Am I… Am I bothering you?" the younger one stuttered, his eyes begging his friend to tell him otherwise.

Shiro stared at him, and suddenly Allura emerged from between his arms.

"Actually, yes, you are." She declared straight, still nestled against the man's chest. Her voice progressively becoming more and more condescending as she continued. "I know that you are jealous, we all have noticed. But Keith, you must know that you've always been like a brother to Shiro. Only a brother," she insisted, and Keith took a step back by instinct.

"I-I have never wanted anything more!"

"You're an adult, now," she cut him firmly without blinking. "You should be able to take care of yourself. You can't simply keep relying on other people. Keith. Let Shiro live his own life."

The red paladin took another step back and hit a brick wall. He knew his hands were shaking but he couldn't think of anything to do or to say. He knew that Allura was right. He knew that Shiro had always been like an older brother, but he couldn't help but feel his heart clench at this thought. Shiro had always been the person closest to Keith, and for most of his life, he had been his only ally, his only friend.

"I… I'm sorry, I won't bother you anymore," was all that Keith managed to say under the heavy weight of the looks the other two were giving him.

He retraced his steps until he arrived in a street he didn't recognize. He knew that something was off, that all that he was experiencing couldn't be real, but there was this little voice in the back of his mind which was telling him that even in the very bottom of the deepest dreams there was always a grain of truth.

He wandered in the streets, not even noticing the suns that were going down in the sky, and when he finally raised his head it was already dusk. He was walking in a narrow street bordered by tall buildings and no sound was breaking the quietness, there was nothing to rouse him from his thoughts. The only thing Keith was able to hear was the wind blowing lightly through the streets, whispering things even he couldn't decipher.

He blinked and suddenly he could hear the sound of water cascading harmoniously. He felt a fresh mist soaking his hair and a chill ran down his spine when he heard people chatting nearby. He knew them.

Hope filled his heart and he started running in their direction, eager to see them. The first person he spotted out of the three was Lance, who was standing in front of his friends, his hand on his hips and a grin across his face. Hunk and Pidge were with them, all of them wearing their paladin armor. Keith's heart beat faster at their sight and he almost laughed with relief.

However, when they turned to face him, his friends didn't seem as happy to see him.

"Oh, if it isn't Keith Kogane!" Lance greeted him with sarcasm.

Pidge glanced at the red paladin and folded her arms on her chest, sulking. Beside her, Hunk stirred nervously.

"I told you he'd end up turning purple," Hunk whispered to Pidge, who couldn't take her eyes off the red paladin, horror on her face. Lance arched a brow, his arms crossed in front of him.

Keith froze and stared at his friends. He raised one of his hands in front of him, already anticipating what he was going to discover. Just as the yellow paladin had predicted, Keith's skin was purple, and his nails were now as sharp as claws.

"I don't want to stay here," Hunk whined, his eyes locked on Keith as if he had to watch his movements carefully. "What if he decides to stab us in the back? He's Galra, after all..."

"Guys, it's still me!" the Galra hybrid yelped. He could feel the tip of his fangs teasing his tongue when he spoke. "I don't know what's happening! Please! Listen to me!"

He stepped forward and Pidge and Hunk took a step back. The girl reached for her bayard, determination in her eyes. Keith caught a glimpse of his reflection in her glasses. His eyes were glowing yellow and he had two marks on his cheeks that were a darker shade of purple than his skin ; soft, short fur was covering his ears that now looked more animal than human.

"Keith, we don't want you there anymore," Lance announced. The worst part was that his voice wasn't even dry, just serious, and somehow it hurt Keith even more. "I don't care about your heritage, I'm just sick of having you around." A joyless smirk painted on Lance's lips before he delivered the final blow. "It's not like we've ever been friends, anyway."

The Galra boy let out a shocked, hurt gasp. He stared at Lance who was staring back at him with pity and disdain, and suddenly Keith realised that he would have prefered having Lance just hating him. The red paladin felt something warm sliding down his cheek, but this time he did nothing to hide his tears. He was way too helpless to do anything. His knees buckled and he violently hit the ground, barely able to breathe through the sobs he couldn't hold back.

Keith heard the footsteps of the paladins going away, leaving him behind them, all alone, and he felt his heart breaking. It was a truly horrible feeling, a nagging pain stabbing straight in his flesh, the feeling of both his lungs burning and his heart exploding, bursting. Icy cold get through his skin and he stayed there, in the middle of the street, shaking and sobbing and unable to get up.

He didn't move when he felt the texture of the ground changing under him, it didn't matter anyway. He was alone, like he had always been. His friends had rejected him, but Keith didn't hold a grudge against them, he was well aware that _he_ was the problem. It was the only logical explanation.

The wind blew stronger and gave the boy the impression that someone was caressing his cheek. He opened his eyes in surprise, blinded by the sunlight and his vision blurry with tears.

"Oh Keith," a feminine voice whispered into his mind. "If only there was someone out there who cared about you." He could hear the woman smile sadly, and even if he didn't know who she was, it crushed the boy's soul. "As I thought, you weren't worth me staying on Earth… You are such a disappointment to me, Keith…"

His voice broke. "Mom?" he croaked, struggling to keep consciousness in spite of the aching pain that was pulsing in his mind and his body.

He heard her smile with pity again before he passed out, the echo of her voice resonating into him.

* * *

Keith woke up in a sweat, panting heavily and so dizzy that he could see three Kalteneckers spinning around him. He spotted movements from the corner of his eyes and mechanically took his knife in hand. The blade awoken, revealing its true length and the paladin felt ready to strike - he was always much more confident when he was about to fight, trusting his instinct was his natural way to deal with unforeseen events.

A sleepy grunt came from under Allura's silvery mass of hair, and Keith saw that the mice had made their nest there. His sudden feeling of relief was so powerful that it almost made him nauseous, and he had to lay down against the cow again.

Coran snored loudly and Keith finally cracked a smile. He was so tired that every tiny noise could make him jump, but knowing that Coran was still there warmed his heart… until his nightmare came back to his memory. The red paladin glanced back at the Altean man and he was half-tempted to wake him up just to apologise. He let out a sigh and looked at the ceiling, then he fell asleep without realising.

He woke up two hours later because of the loud song of a predator that looked like a butterfly-hummingbird, a species indigenous to Aldebaran b, the planet they had landed on. Keith opened his eyes and met Allura's kind smile. Her hair was smoothly cascading down her shoulders and no trace of the mice's nest remained, it was flawless, as always. Keith blinked a few times, repressing a huge yawn, and looked around him confusedly. He didn't remember falling asleep but it had been a dreamless sleep that had managed to give him some rest.

Coran was sat up on his bed, food on his knees, a slight smile on his lips, and the bandage he had on his torso had been changed, certainly by the princess. He was already looking a bit better: his skin was less pale and his eyes seemed more vivid than the day ago. Though, soon, Keith noticed that someone was missing.

"Where's Shiro?" the paladin asked, his eyebrows knitting together. He had lost count of how many times he had pronounced those exact same words in his life.

"He'll be back soon," Allura assured, obviously beaming. "He went out to join Matt and Pidge. They said that they are safe and that they have found a ship that will allow us to get the Castle of Lions back!"

She extended her arms, as if to hug Keith, but she ended up hesitating and gave him a sheepish smile that made the paladin laugh. He sighed a little and smiled back at the princess who eventually took him into her arms and hugged him tight. It was something Keith had never been used to, and somehow he was convinced he would never get accustomed to being hugged by someone.

Allura finally pulled back, flashing the most radiant grin. Even if she had tried to hide it, the weight that the loss of the Castle represented for the princess hadn't been a secret around there. To be able to take it back was the hugest relief Allura could have wished for. She had all her memories in there, including her last memories of her father, that she cherished more than anything.

Keith glanced at Coran who was smiling kindly at them, and a spark of guilt ran through his chest. The paladin got up and walked to the injured man. He swallowed, his eyes on the bandage. He knew he couldn't face Coran's gaze.

"Coran. I'm sorry, I should have stayed with you in the Castle, we could have avoided all of this and you wouldn't have been injured. I should have been there to…"

The Altean man wasn't listening anymore to Keith's rambling. He shared a look with Allura, who seemed to be as confused as her advisor. In front of Coran, the young man looked like he was in pain, his eyelids close tight and his fists clenched to the point his hands were shaking.

"What are you apologising for?" Coran eventually interrupted him, his voice low and soft. "If you had stayed with me, both of us would be injured now. They were way too many of them for only two people to handle."

Keith was still avoiding his gaze, and Coran knew he couldn't convince the boy of his sincerity. The red paladin was one of those people who always blamed themselves and tried to make up to people, even if they actually had done nothing wrong at all.

Coran let out a slight sigh and he was going to add something when the door slammed open.

"YOUR SAVIOUUUR IS HERE!" a male voice yelled.

Keith immediately turned toward the origin of the sound, and suddenly he was no longer sure whether he was awake or dreaming. His face turned so pale that he looked like he had just seen a ghost - which was exactly how he felt. The man in the doorway looked exactly like Lance, except it couldn't be him. Lance was on Earth, with his family, there was no reason for him to go to space again. Though, the body language was similar and the voice was the same too. Only the haircut and the outfit were different from Lance's.

"Did you miss me?" the guy asked with a wink and a smile that could outshine a supernova.

No doubt, it was definitely Lance. What the hell was he doing on Aldebaran b?!

The sharpshooter took the princess's hand in his as a greeting, then he walked to Coran to check up on him, visibly worried.

Matt and Pidge entered the room, followed by Shiro and Hunk who were carrying a huge cylindrical fishtank in which a seal-human alien kid was floating happily, a curious look on their face.

"Who's that?" the red paladin only managed to ask. He had so many questions - like "Weren't Pidge and Matt the only ones supposed to come?" or "How do you expect all of us to fit in a spacecraft retrieved on Earth?" -, but he was so confused that he could barely find anything to say at all.

"This, my friend, is our new buddy! We don't know their name yet, but they were locked in Area 51, so we decided to save them," Lance informed him, leaning nonchalantly on Keith, his elbow on the red paladin's shoulder.

Keith stared at him, still not believing that this guy was really Lance, and that he had changed so much in only a few weeks. What had brought him here?

He frowned, "Area 51?". He had made a lot of research about the place long before the blue Lion was found, but he had never been really certain that it existed. Knowing that his friends had actually visited it was kind of strange to him, and a bit hard to believe.

In front of him, Pidge was beaming, the proudest smile upon her face. "Yup, that's where we got the ship from!"

"It was no big deal. Actually, it was almost disappointing," Matt continued with the same smile as his sister, his eyes sparkling just at the memories. He told the others everything about their adventure, how they had knocked out a guy from the government and how they had stolen a giant flying saucer from one of the most mysterious places on Earth. In the meantime, Coran and Allura were staring at the humans, barely understanding their words.

A few _vargas_ passed during which the earthlings took a much needed nap and ate what was left from the space team's provisions. Even if it would have been wiser to split the team, considering their makeshift spacecraft had limited room and Coran's injuries, they eventually decided that all of them would leave the hotel and travel to take the Castle and their Lions back. Given that most of them didn't have weapons, they needed all the support they could rely on, and Coran insisted to go with them.

"I'm not as old as you younglings seem to think." Coran had said, mildly offended. "And I will always fight to protect Princess Allura and the Altean heritage," he had declared, determination flaming so vividly into his eyes that nobody had dared contradicting him.

It had taken them only two more _vargas_ to come up with a plan - if they could call it a plan. They would go with the weapons they had at hand, and without anything to protect themselves, as their armours were still in the Castle. They had no strategy, and all they could expect was that the thieves hadn't gone too far away from them. Allura was convinced she could find the ship by instinct if she focused hard enough, and Coran had confirmed that if was totally plausible since the princess had grown a strong link with the spacecraft. After all, it was Altean technology.

The probabilities of success were very slim, but that was all that they had, and all that they could rely on.

* * *

Keith was sitting on the floor against a wall of the flying saucer, lost so deep in thoughts that he didn't see Pidge slipping beside him. She stared at him for a solid two _doboshes_ without getting any reaction from him.

Around them, everybody seemed to be busy planning out every detail. Matt had been designated their pilot, Allura was standing beside him, her hands on the back of his seat, her eyes closed tight. Her focus was so intense that she was almost radiating. Every now and then she would whisper something to Matt to adjust their direction. Coran was with them, making sure everything was alright.

On the other side of the room, Shiro, Lance and Hunk were establishing strategies, sometimes glancing at Keith, wondering why he didn't join them.

"What's wrong with him?" Lance muttered, irritated. "He's barely said a word since we came to your rescue."

His friends followed his upset look, which was once more on Keith.

"He's been having a hard time since the team splitted up," Shiro explained in a low voice. "I think having lost the Castle and the Lions, and now having you around again is a bit too much to take in all at once for him."

"Are you sure that's all there is?" the blue paladin asked with a frown, a hint of worry in his voice. "I'm pretty sure he's upset because I didn't reply to the text he has sent me…"

Shiro stared at him in silence for a few _ticks_ , visibly processing the information. "Perhaps you should try to apologise, then?" he offered with a gentle smile. "I think he missed you more than he'll ever admit," the black paladin laughed, and Lance seriously wondered if Shiro was joking or not.

Meanwhile, Pidge had somehow managed to bring Keith down to earth… metaphorically. The red paladin had almost slapped her but she had been swift enough to dodge his punch, and her glare had frozen the other paladin.

"What's going on?" she asked right after Keith's apologies. He stared at her as if he didn't understand her language. "You haven't said anything for _vargas_. Don't lie to me, I counted!"

"Nothing," the boy mumbled, which made Pidge cringe and almost punch him in the face.

"I said 'Don't. Lie.'", she demanded, gritting her teeth in order not to yell at her friend. She took a deep breath to calm down and then she spoke again. "Is it because Lance didn't answer your text? His phone was broken. I know, it's so lame but it's the truth," she snickered.

From the corner of her eyes, she saw Keith tensing up and just from his body language she could picture the face he was displaying - frustration and irritation. She was going to add something when Lance came in their direction. Keith quirked a brow at the blue paladin's obvious nervousness.

The latter took a deep breath, then he locked his eyes on Keith's.

"Okay, listen, I didn't mean to ghost you. I was just… Well, first my phone fell in that puddle and it was broken and then there was that thunderstorm so I couldn't use my computer anymore - because, you know, the router had crashed -, and then Pidge and Hunk showed up but…"

The red paladin had stopped listening to Lance's rambling _doboshes_ ago, he didn't even care anymore about what the sharpshooter was saying. At first, he had wanted to be angry at Lance, and to be honest he had almost succeeded, but the blue paladin's expression and his tone when he was apologising were too much for Keith to stay mad at him. He almost wanted to laugh at himself. God knew he had missed this dork, even Keith couldn't deny it.

A sparkle glowed into Pidge's eyes as she stared at the red paladin. He had this very slight, very well hidden grin that he always had when he was amused by Lance, and somehow it made the green paladin feel relieved.

"Lance." Keith only said, an amused smile in his voice.

"... and then we were in that hotel room, ready to break into Area 51, and I swear I didn't even notice time passing! Oh, man, you'd have been so delighted in the hangars! Weapons everywhere, Galra stuffs…"

"Lance." Keith repeated, but the sharpshooter suddenly stopped his rambling, as if a detail had caught his attention. A detail that he seemed to be the only one aware of.

"Anyway, I'm sorry," Lance finally declared with a sheepish smile, holding his hand in front of Keith. "Still friends?"

Keith raised a brow, a smile spread on his lips. "I thought we were rivals?" he asked in a teasing voice.

* * *

In front of the team was a big planet, covered by a thick layer of green gas, and somehow the intricate designs that the swirls of gaz drew on the surface reminded the humans of Jupiter. Anyway, they weren't able to see anything through it, and knowing that they couldn't land on the planet to explore was leaving them pacing up and down like caged lions.

"The Castle is right there," Allura assured again, a hint of frustration in her voice. "I can feel it."

"But we can't do anything about it," Shiro stated once more, putting his hand on the princess's shoulder. "We have to wait until they leave the planet so we can board them."

"I know…" she sighed. She hated this so much, feeling totally helpless… But neither she nor the paladins had equipement that allowed them to breathe in inhospitable atmospheres.

They had nothing to protect themselves. No shield, no weapon.

All they had left was their determination to take their home back.

After several _vargas_ spent watching the planet, they all agreed on taking a rest. They decided to take shifts one by one, but deep inside they all shared the same fear: that the thieves would never take off.

Shiro had taken the first watch, then it had been Coran, and by the time it was Lance's turn, Keith was sound asleep...

* * *

There he was again. He was starting to know the place by heart, and he knew very well how it was going to end - again. The Dark Room had always been more or less the same: empty, without any light coming in, save for a keyhole or a peephole pierced in what he knew was a door. Sometimes he could hear voices coming from the other side, but nobody ever came to free him.

Though, this time, the Dark Place had changed. Keith could feel it.

He groped in the dark and the sound of his steps told him that the room was bigger than before. The lack of echo informed him that there were actually some furnitures. Suddenly, he bumped into something very hard and he let out a muffled scream. When the pain disappeared and the stars stopped dancing under his eyelids, he extended his arm to reach for the object. It was a rough surface, very granular, and the paladin could feel holes on its sides. Keith suddenly realised that it was a cinder block, and when he put his hand higher on the surface, he felt a thick wood board. The construction reminded him of a table.

A few meters away, Keith found what he guessed was a metal couch, and against the wall behind the couch, his hand met a heavy fabric.

That's when the thought hit him.

The red paladin frantically pulled on the curtain that revealed a dusty window. This time, enough light came through the glass to allow the boy to see.

"It's… impossible…" was the first thing that came to his mind, soon followed by "What has happened here?"

Keith was back in his shack, but it had changed. More precisely, it had aged. There was dust everywhere on the furnitures, and sand had managed to get in, covering part of the floor. The curtains and the couch were damaged, and the books on the shelf were covered in strange scratches.

A detail caught his attention and Keith carefully walked to the corkboard on the opposite wall. Plenty of papers used to be pinned to it, but they all had disappeared. Instead, there were now photos and newspapers.

' _Aliens on Earth! Will the Mars Attacks scenario become reality?_ ' read the first article.

' _Humans enslaved: the rebellion had been annihilated_ ' claimed another one.

In the middle of the board, in a brown-red ink that Keith recognized as blood, two words were written in capital letters: _VREPIT SA_.

The paladin took a step back in shock and bumped into the table. Goosebumps covered his arms, he had a very bad feeling. A black sticky note fell to Keith's feet, ominous. The boy carefully took it, his hand shaking, and a cold shiver ran down his spine when he read the words written on it. ' _One of us_ '.

The red paladin was now shaking uncontrollably. He closed his eyes tight and took deep breaths, alert. He tried to ignore the itchy feeling that grew on his skin but couldn't resist it.

He knew what he was going to see even before he opened his eyes. His hands and his arms were bloody because of him scratching them, but more importantly, they were purple. All around him were photos of his friends, of people he had known, but all of them were injured - or worse. Keith closed his eyes again to escape the view.

A loud, deep laugh resonated in his mind, and Keith recognised Sendak's voice for having heard him threatening the paladins and their home planet many times. He fell to his knees, distressed.

"ENOUGH!" the boy yelled, trying to get out of his own head. This was way worse than all his times in the Dark Room.

Keith got up in a hurry and rushed to the door, tears of terror streaming down his cheeks. To his surprise, it opened immediately.

"Keith?"

He stopped still and lost his breath so suddenly that it hurt him in the chest.

Lance didn't sounded afraid. He sounded worried.

"Hey buddy, are you okay?" He put his hand on the Galra orphan, which made the latter jump. "I'm there. It's all right, just calm down and listen to me."

Keith swallowed hard, panting and his heart still racing. Didn't Lance see that he was a monster?

"Focus on my voice."

Despite his instinct screaming to run, the red paladin nodded and tried his best to obtemperate. After a few more minutes, he managed to grab control on his emotions. When he opened his eyes again, Keith felt more normal. His skin was back to its usual tone too, just still bloody. He raised his gaze to Lance, who had kept his eyes on him the whole time. Though, he didn't look disgusted, and a slight smile was lighting up his face. The blue paladin had his old haircut and he was wearing his usual jacket, the khaki one. Keith had missed them so much. Not that he didn't like Lance's actual look - it suited him -, but it was weird to see him looking different, as if they had spent years apart from each other.

"Sorry about that," Keith apologised, looking away. He glanced at his shack, which had disappeared. Instead, he could see the ocean, blending with the sky on the horizon. The view was stunningly beautiful and for a few seconds, Keith forgot all that he had in mind.

"What about we stay here for a bit?" the blue paladin offered with a grin.

This time, Keith accepted.


End file.
